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Canada's national weekly current affairs magazineTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:58:13 +0000en-CAhourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2Large scale operation to recapture Iraqi city of Tikrit beginshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/large-scale-operation-to-recapture-iraqi-city-of-tikrit-begins/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/large-scale-operation-to-recapture-iraqi-city-of-tikrit-begins/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 10:26:28 +0000The Associated Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=686719Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, is one of the largest cities held by the Islamic State group and sits on the road to Mosul

BAGHDAD – Backed by allied Shiite and Sunni fighters, Iraqi security forces on Monday began a large-scale military operation to recapture Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the Islamic State extremist group, state TV said, a major step in a campaign to reclaim a large swath of territory in northern Iraq controlled by the militants.

The city of Tikrit, 130 kilometres north of Baghdad, fell into the hands of the Islamic State group last summer along with the country’s second-largest city of Mosul and other areas in the country’s Sunni heartland after the collapse of national security forces. Tikrit is one of the largest cities held by the Islamic State group and sits on the road to Mosul.

Security forces have so far been unable to retake Tikrit, but momentum has begun to shift after soldiers, backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition, recently took back the nearby refinery town of Beiji. Any operation to take Mosul would require Iraq to seize Tikrit first because of its strategic location for military enforcements.

U.S. military officials have said a co-ordinated military mission to retake Mosul will likely begin in April or May and involve up to 25,000 Iraqi troops. But they have cautioned that if the Iraqis aren’t ready, the timing could be delayed. Past attempts to retake Tikrit have failed, and Iraqi authorities say they have not set a date to launch a major operation to recapture the city. Heavy fighting between Islamic State and Kurdish forces is taking place only outside the city.

Al-Iraqiya television said that the forces were attacking Tikrit from different directions, backed by artillery and airstrikes by Iraqi fighter jets. It said the militants were dislodged from some areas outside the city. Several hours into the operation, it gave no details.

Tikrit is an important test case for Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which is trying to reassert authority over the divided country. Iraq is bitterly split between minority Sunnis, who were an important base of support for Saddam, and the Shiite majority.

While the TV said Shiite and Sunni tribal fighters were co-operating in Monday’s offensive, Tikrit is an important Sunni stronghold, and the presence of Shiite forces risks could prompt a backlash among Sunnis. The Iraqi military is heavily dependent on Shiite militias that have been accused of abusing Sunni communities elsewhere in Iraq.

Hours ahead of the operation, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shiite, called on Sunni tribal fighters to abandon the Islamic State extremist group.

“I call upon those who have been misled or committed a mistake to lay down arms and join their people and security forces in order to liberate their cities,” al-Abadi said Sunday during a news conference in Samarra, 95 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Al-Abadi offered what he called “the last chance” for Sunni tribal fighters, promising them a pardon. “The city will soon return to its people,” he added.

His comments appeared to be targeting former members of Iraq’s outlawed Baath party, loyalists to Saddam, who joined the Islamic State group during its offensive, as well as other Sunnis who were dissatisfied with Baghdad’s Shiite-led government.

Saddam, the country’s longtime ruler, was ousted in 2003 by U.S. forces and later executed. Tikrit frequently saw attacks on U.S. forces during the American occupation of the country.

During question period on Tuesday afternoon, Liberal MP Joyce Murray asked Jason Kenney, the brand-new minister of National Defence, to account for the fact that the department he is now in charge of had refused to comply with requests from the Parliament Budget Officer for information related to the mission in Iraq.

“Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives refused for four months to provide Canadians with any information at all about the cost of the Iraq mission, so I asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer for help. According to the PBO, they then illegally ‘refused all PBO requests for specific data on this mission,’ ” she said. “Yesterday, the minister added insult to this secrecy and deception by slapping down a single cost number—no detail, no analysis, just an end run of the PBO’s report released today. Does the minister not believe Canadians have the right to be respected and to have real cost information on this important mission?”

The government’s relative willingness to release information to the PBO—an office this government established—seems like a legitimate concern. But the Defence minister seemed uninterested in engaging with this particular matter.

“An important mission that the Liberal Party opposes, Mr. Speaker,” Kenney retorted. “This government committed from the beginning that we would release the costs in the appropriate and normal parliamentary method, which we have done. It will be tabled this week as part of the supplementary estimates C, $122 million is the incremental cost associated with operation IMPACT.”

The minister then sought to clarify for viewers what should actually be the focus of their attention. “The real issue is why the Liberal Party has turned its back on decades of responsible internationalism, and a party that used to stand for national security is now standing against our efforts to protect Canadians in opposing the genocidal terrorist organization, ISIL,” he said. “We are proud of what our men and women in uniform are doing to combat that organization.”

As good as it is to know that the government remains supportive of our troops, this issue of the government’s regard for the PBO should not be disappeared down the memory hole without at least a moment’s thought.

The story today might have otherwise been that the government’s costing and the PBO’s estimate were vaguely in line with each other. Unfortunately, the fourth paragraph of the PBO’s report reads as follows:

PBO made a number of information requests to the Department of National Defence (DND) to facilitate this analysis. While DND provided an up-to-date version of its Cost Factors Manual 2014-15, it refused all PBO requests for specific data on Operation IMPACT. Several of these refusals appear to breach DND’s legal obligations under the Parliament of Canada Act. Information that would have been helpful for PBO analysis was also denied to parliamentarians in the context of Order Paper questions. Much of the uncertainty in this report’s estimate of the cost of Operation IMACT arises from DND’s withholding of information.

In response, the Department of National Defence invokes the legal exemptions provided for what are known as cabinet confidences, that which the cabinet is allowed to keep to itself for the purposes of allowing “full and frank discussions” among ministers:

The Department of National Defence has, and will continue to provide the PBO with information that he needs to do his job, within the mandate Parliament has given him.

As per our correspondence with the PBO on December 23, 2014, some of the information requested was deemed to be Cabinet Confidence and could not be released at that time.

We remain committed to ensuring that Parliament is informed of the costs associated with the mission, which will continue to be reported through the usual parliamentary process.

On this assertion of cabinet confidence, the PBO wrote (pdf) to the deputy minister at Defence in November to argue that such an exemption should not apply. The deputy minister doesn’t seem to have engaged the PBO’s arguments in his response (pdf). The PBO is making very specific arguments about the applicability of cabinet confidence, and those arguments would seem to deserve direct answers.

At page seven of the PBO’s latest report, there is a summary of the office’s information requests, including this explanation and counterpoint:

PBO requested this information by October 31, 2014. On November 4, 2014, Lieutenant-General Jonathan Vance confirmed that the Canadian Joint Operations Command had provided the Government with “an estimate of [the cost of] operations over the course of six months.”12 DND has repeatedly refused to provide that estimate, claiming it as a Cabinet confidence.13 The estimate is not a Cabinet confidence because it provides the factual basis for a decision that has been made, and, regardless, PBO is entitled to the information contained in Cabinet confidences provided the information appears in any other document.

If there is a rebuttal to that, it’d be fun to hear it.

(Oddly enough, the Conservative party promised in 2006 that, if the Conservatives formed government, the information commissioner would be given the power to review claims of cabinet confidence.)

This latest dispute might be added to the discussion of how the parliamentary budget officer should be, or we could just all agree that we are better off with independent analysis and costing of government initiatives and legislation and that the parliamentary budget officer is a useful construct for acquiring such accountability. And that, in that regard, it is worrisome when the office’s requests for information are denied.

This particular dispute between the PBO and the government will no doubt be forgotten by next week, perhaps to be recalled in passing when this country’s mission in Iraq next becomes a matter of some debate. But the situation and future of the PBO is a live issue, whether we notice it or not—the PBO continuing on and the changes that might be made to further empower it unmade, unless and until Parliament decides otherwise.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/why-cant-the-parliamentary-budget-officer-get-the-information-it-wants/feed/2Defence chief authorized special forces air strike support in Iraqhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/defence-chief-authorized-special-forces-air-strike-support-in-iraq/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/defence-chief-authorized-special-forces-air-strike-support-in-iraq/#commentsThu, 29 Jan 2015 23:31:53 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=672313Gen. Tom Lawson, Canada's top military commander, tells a committee that he didn't expect his soldiers would be guiding air strikes in Iraq

OTTAWA – The country’s top military commander says he didn’t expect his soldiers would be guiding air strikes in Iraq when he first outlined their mission last fall, but he later gave the OK for them to do so.

The acknowledgment by Gen. Tom Lawson came amid a testy House of Commons committee meeting on Thursday where opposition MPs and cabinet ministers duelled over the definition of combat and whether the actions of the special forces violated the parliamentary motion that authorized the military deployment.

The defence chief told an interviewer on Oct. 19 the Canadians would have “nothing to do” with calling in air strikes; that none of the other allies were doing it and that the mission was to “assist, but not accompany” Kurdish peshmerga forces into battle.

What he didn’t anticipate was that the training would progress so quickly, to the point where the Canadians were teaching how to target air strikes.

“So, in fact I provided them, within the advise-and-assist mission, the authority to go ahead with that,” he said.

At issue is when the Harper government knew about the significant change in the role of the troops and why it took the Conservatives almost two months to reveal it.

Canadians began assisting in U.S.-led coalition air strikes at the end of November, yet there was no public mention of it until Jan. 19.

During question period on Thursday, NDP defence critic Jack Harris demanded to know when the defence minister knew of the change, but Rob Nicholson would only say the mission was progressing and that the opposition didn’t support it.

Nicholson and Lawson, while both championing the air combat mission involving the country’s CF-18s, steadfastly denied that the actions of special forces on the ground — in guiding air strikes and returning fire while at the front — constituted a combat mission.

Liberal foreign affairs critic Marc Garneau put Lawson on the spot by placing the Canadian military’s textbook definition of combat before him.

“It says a combat operation is a military operation where the use — or threatened use — of force, including lethal force is essential to impose will upon an armed opponent — or to accomplish a mission,” said Garneau. “Is this not what we’re doing in Iraq?”

Lawson said it wasn’t. He hung his argument on the notion that the troops were not using their “weapons to compel the enemy,” but only to defend themselves when fired upon. He wasn’t asked to explain how the use of a laser pointer to guide a 235-kilogram bomb to a target would not be considered imposing will upon the other side.

The hair-splitting irked NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar, who said he has sympathy for Lawson for having to defend the mission.

“This semantics that we’re playing, when the prime minister says we’re not going to accompany and we’re accompanying, it must confuse the heck out of you as the chief of defence staff. My heart goes out to you,” said Dewar.

“At the end of the day, when you have soldiers out there on the front lines, whether you call it a combat mission or not, they’re in combat. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it’s a duck.”

Special forces missions were covered with a tight blanket of security during the Afghan war and none of Canada’s allies have gone as far as the Harper government in describing their special operations in Iraq.

Nicholson tried to paint this as a sign of government transparency, but at the same time he refused repeated demands for a cost estimate on the mission, saying that will be revealed in public accounts records later this year.

Stephen Harper would not let the New Democrats and Liberals confuse him or the public as to what was really going on here.

“Mr. Speaker, the only problem here is that the NDP does not support the military mission against the Islamic State,” he explained, “something that all of our principal allies and many more around the world are involved in because it involves a direct threat to this country and to the civilized world.”

That seems fairly straightforward.

“Our troops are there advising and assisting Iraqi forces, and they are doing an excellent job,” the Prime Minister continued. “We stand 100 per cent behind them.”

The Conservatives stood to applaud their agreement with the sentiment.

But Tom Mulcair, ever the quibbler, believed this to be an imperfect summation of the situation and so he stood to differ.

“Mr. Speaker, our troops always do an excellent job in the missions that they are given by the Canadian government and by this Parliament,” he said, receiving even some applause from the Conservative side. ”The question here is this: Why did the Prime Minister mislead the Canadian public?”

This was a different kind of problem.

“Those quotes are clear. Those questions were precise,” he said, sort of bragging. “The Prime Minister gave intentionally misleading answers. Canadians want to know why their Prime Minister, on something this important, did not tell the truth to Canadians.”

There were protests from the government benches, “misleading” being something one is not to be heard accusing another of doing in this place. Duly, the Speaker stood and asked Mr. Mulcair to keep in mind that such language is unparliamentary.

Challenged so directly, the Prime Minister then attempted to win the moment with another definitive declaration.

“Canadian troops, under their commanders, are executing exactly the mission that Canadians have given them, that this Parliament has given them, that Canadians expect. They are advising; they are assisting,” he explained. “Guess what? If fired upon, they are going to shoot back; and if they kill some of the ISIL terrorists, Canadians are going to support that, no matter what the New Democrats think.”

The Prime Minister chopped his hand at the official Opposition and once again the Conservatives stood and cheered.

Had the resolution presented to the House of Commons last fall only asked MPs to agree or disagree with the notion of killing the bad guys, we might not be hearing these noises of consternation now. But that 294-word motion specified asked the House to “note that the Government of Canada will not deploy troops in ground combat operations.”

And a week before that was put to the House, there was what the Prime Minister said of the Canadian Forces members that were by then already on the ground in Iraq.

“They are there to advise and assist Iraqi forces in the northern part of the country,” he said. “It is to advise and to assist. It is not to accompany.”

Were these members of the Canadian Forces accompanying Iraqis into combat zones? “Canadian soldiers are not accompanying the Iraqi forces into combat,” Mr. Harper said.

Tom Mulcair then asked the Prime Minister whether the Canadian Forces would be assisting in the targeting of ISIS troops and whether that would constitute a combat role. The Prime Minister didn’t directly answer either of those questions.

Canadian involvement has subsequently “evolved” and soldiers have been marking targets for airstrikes and getting near enough to the bad guys to be shot at and shoot back.

To this, Mr. Harper and his government now loudly proclaim that Canadian soldiers will return fire if fired upon. Fair enough, but it doesn’t seem anyone is suggesting otherwise. Indeed, for the sake of dispensing with superfluous rallying cries, the House might additionally just agree to follow the prayer each day with unanimous agreement for the statement that “We are appreciative of our fellow citizens who agree to endanger themselves in the national interest.” Then perhaps the House would be better able to focus on the details.

Though perhaps even that is imagining too much.

“Mr. Speaker, all Canadians support the right of our forces to defend themselves when they are sent into harm’s way,” Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau posited in the House on Monday. “The government said our ground forces would advise and assist, but not accompany, Iraqi troops. Now we find out they are routinely on the front lines. Why did the government mislead Canadians?”

“Mr. Speaker, I am not sure we could train troops without accompanying them,” the Defence minister sighed in response.

Rob Nicholson perhaps thought he was being funny. And if you have a sense of humour about clumsy contradictions in the explanation of war and/or poorly played retorts, this is surely worth a laugh or two.

But if the Prime Minister stands in the House in September and says the mission on the ground “is to advise and to assist … not to accompany,” it is not particularly wise for the Defence minister to stand in the House in January and say Canadians could not train Iraqis without accompanying them. In attempting to make Trudeau seem unserious, Nicholson had diminished his own seriousness.

The Defence minister was subsequently made to try to run around two specific questions asked by Liberal MP Marc Garneau at committee hearings this morning: Whose description of the mission for soldiers on the ground was correct? And what do the terms advise, assist and accountability mean? Nicholson rambled in various directions.

Turning to Gen. Tom Lawson, the chief of Defence staff, Garneau then read aloud from the Department of National Defence’s guide to terminology, which apparently defines a “combat operation” as a “military operation where the use or threatened use of force, including lethal force, is essential to impose will on an armed opponent or to accomplish a mission.”

“Is this not what we’re doing in Iraq?” Garneau asked.

“It is not,” Gen. Lawson said. “We are able, under the advise and assist role, to provide the peshmerga the ability to heighten the accuracy of the weapons they’re calling in in their combat role, not our combat role, but their combat role. What we would require to be in combat would be this accompany term, and you are right to mention that the word accompany in everyday language is quite clear, it means to be with. But in military terms, as you’re quoting doctrine, it has a very clear other meaning and that is that you are now up front with the troops that you have been assigned to, with your weapon being used to compel the enemy.”

Or, as Brig.-Gen. Michael Rouleau put it in a briefing earlier this month, ”A combat mission is when we leave our positions and move physically toward the enemy to capture or kill him. We are not doing that here … The fact that we had an exchange of fire with ISIL does not mean that this has become a combat mission. It is a great deal more nuanced than that.”

So the Canadian Forces can be in the company of Iraqis without accompanying them and they can contend with enemy bullets without being in combat. On those grounds, the Prime Minister cannot be said to have misled the House, something NDP MP Jack Harris has formally asked the Speaker to find.

In appearing alongside Nicholson and Lawson this morning, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird had said that there were “legitimate questions” about this country’s engagement. “We will try to answer those as clearly as we are able, but as we have a constructive dialogue, let’s not lose sight of the nature of the threat. After all, the issue is bigger than that, this House is bigger than that and, in my view, Canada is bigger than that.”

Baird said something similar in launching the official debate of the mission in October, but in this case he said as much less than 24 hours after the Prime Minister stood in the House and ventured that, “I know the opposition members think it is a terrible thing that we are actually standing up to jihadists. I know they think it is a terrible thing that some of these jihadists got killed when they fired on the Canadian military.”

Even if we grant that each of the three parties has some mind for politics in this case and allow that question period is most conveniently a place for shouted declarations (You misled us! We support the troops!), we might agree that it does not embiggen the soul of this place to hear anyone suggesting anything like sympathy for the enemy (and, in that sense, let us imagine Mr. Harper was merely suggesting some sort of political complication for the opposition).

Though the precise utility of having Parliament vote to authorize a military operation is contested, it is unquestionably a good and serious thing that such efforts are brought before the House for close scrutiny and debate. And that that debate will, like any other, involve shouting is not to be lamented. But in the current case, and from its start, the moments of constructive dialogue have come only as little gasps between extended bouts of shouting.

Today’s committee hearings would follow that pattern, NDP MP Paul Dewar getting shouty with Nicholson and the Conservative members finding time to be disappointed in the Liberal and New Democrat representatives. And after a week of shouting around the terms to be used, there would seem to be good questions that are going unasked.

Is war a serious matter? Possibly the most serious. Does Parliament treat war as a serious matter? Perhaps only insofar as the shouting about it is particularly pointed. Mind you, if it is being handled unseriously, it is perhaps only being handled like any other matter.

ESKI MOSUL, Iraq – An unarmed Sunni Arab man walked along a road in a patch of northern Iraq newly liberated from Islamic State extremists, holding a white surrender flag – a signal to Kurdish fighters that he is not a militant. Cars drove by, a similar white banner flying from their windows.

As they retake territory from Islamic State militants, Iraqi Kurdish fighters have found surprising ambivalence in areas they freed from the jihadis’ oppressive rule. Locals have swiftly shaken off the imposed Islamic lifestyle – but as Sunnis, from the same ethnic group as the militants, many are nonetheless bracing for treatment as collaborators.

For their part, the Kurdish peshmerga troops are suspicious about why the locals chose to stay on when the Islamic State conquered the area in a blitz last year. An Associated Press team travelling with the Kurds found the road to Mosul, a coveted prize in the battle for Iraq, strewn with suspicion and fear.

The recent Kurdish push secured several towns and villages along a critical junction that connects the town of Tal Afar to the city of Mosul – two of the IS group’s biggest strongholds in Iraq. The artery, which eventually leads to Syria, has been a vital supply line for militants transporting weapons, goods and people across the lawless Iraq-Syria border.

The Kurdish fighters struggled for months to inch ahead, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. On Tuesday, at least four airstrikes hit IS positions near Eski Mosul, a village of up to about 9,000 residents some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Mosul.

Kurdish Brig. Gen. Bahjat Taymes, who led the peshmerga operation to retake the Tal Afar-Mosul junction, said seizing it was “crucial” because it also leads to the Mosul Dam, which Kurdish and Iraqi forces won back in August with the help of U.S. airstrikes.

Last week’s uptick in the airstrikes marked the start of a new, broader effort to disrupt Islamic State’s supply lines ahead of an expected operation later this year to take back Mosul, U.S. military officials said.

A senior U.S. military official said military leaders were watching to see how Islamic State militants respond as their supply and communications lines dry up. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the operations.

Islamic State fighters destroyed many power lines and bridges trying to slow the Kurdish advance but were eventually routed from the area. In the nearby town of Shandoukhah, bulldozers and Kurdish troops worked feverishly this week to enforce positions, piling up dirt and sandbags as deterrents against suicide bombers or shelling.

The Kurdish fighters in Eski Mosul – Turkish for “Old Mosul,” a name from the Ottoman rule – say they plan to leave as soon as Iraqi troops return but their enthusiasm about pressing ahead in a fight for predominantly Arab territory is half-hearted.

Last June, Iraqi forces suffered a humiliating defeat amid the IS group’s lightening advance. Their commanders disappeared, pleas for more ammunition went unanswered and in some cases, soldiers stripped off their uniforms and ran. The Kurdish fighters then filled the vacuum in northern Iraq, seeing a chance to spread out from their semi-autonomous region and claim long-disputed territories in their bid for full independence.

The Iraqi military briefly returned in August for the battle to retake the Mosul Dam, “but we haven’t seen them since,” said Taymes, the Kurdish general.

The villagers in Eski Mosul are grateful for their Kurdish liberators, many of whom speak almost no Arabic. But the Sunni villagers also know it will take time to convince the newcomers they hold no allegiance to the Islamic State. The militants left much devastation before they fled.

Many in Eski Mosul admit they welcomed the IS when the group first arrived, resentful of what they perceive as years of neglect, discrimination and sectarian policies by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

“We thought they were revolutionaries coming to help us and give us our rights,” said 30-year-old grocer, Salim Khudair.

Hard times followed. The village soon lost cooking gas and electricity, forcing the people to heat what little food remained over open ground fires. The cows became emaciated and many stopped giving milk. Most of the infants and the elderly became sickly.

Now, they can glimpse a better life emerging. Cigarettes _ strictly banned under the Islamic State, which seized a third of both Iraq and neighbouring Syria and imposed strict Sharia law _ are sold and smoked freely. For the first time in months, women and young girls walk the narrow dirt streets without having to cover their faces. Young boys wrestle and play soccer without fear.

But mistrust lingers.

As several Kurdish fighters on Tuesday handed out bottled water, speaking to the villagers in broken Arabic, a group of village girls came up, timidly saying to the soldiers, “please don’t blow up our homes.”

Shaimaa, a resident of Eski Mosul who declined to give her full name out of fear for her safety, said her brother-in-law supported the Islamic State and so the Kurdish troops deemed her husband guilty by association and detained him.

Khudair, the grocer, claimed the peshmerga fighters confiscated some of his belongings, including a credit card machine he uses for work.

With the Islamic State still sporadically shells the village – the last time as recently as Monday – some among the Kurds worry the villagers are tipping off the militants about the Kurdish positions.

“We need them to trust us and to co-operate with us,” explained al-Mizouri, the Kurdish colonel. He said he believes some villagers are still loyal to the jihadis. “Not all of them, but maybe 10 per cent. It is essential that we identify those people and take care of our backs before we continue.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/as-iraqi-kurds-gain-ground-from-islamic-state-distrust-lingers/feed/0Were Canadians misled about the mission in Iraq?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/were-canadians-misled-about-the-mission-in-iraq/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/were-canadians-misled-about-the-mission-in-iraq/#commentsTue, 20 Jan 2015 21:11:43 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=667745Or did we just not know enough?

Greetings from London, Ontario, where the Liberal caucus is meeting and where Justin Trudeau had the occasion this afternoon to express his concern with Stephen Harper’s “forthrightness.”

At issue here is the deployment of the Canadian Forces to Iraq and yesterday’s revelations that Canadians are spending some amount of time near the front lines, have directed air attacks and, in one case, exchanged fire with Islamic State fighters. The Canadian Forces argue that this does not constitute engagement in a ground combat operation. But this morning Tom Mulcair said that Mr. Harper had not told the truth when he said Canadians would not be involved in combat and shortly thereafter Mr. Trudeau added his concerns.

The issue today is very much the Prime Minister made some statements in the fall around this mission that turned out today to not have been entirely truthful. And therefore the Prime Minister has some very serious questions to answer.

… I think it’s fairly clear that the Prime Minister established parameters for the mission, that he laid out with great assurance before the House of Commons, and as we found out yesterday have not been respected. I think the Prime Minister owes it to Canadians to be forthright and fulsome in his explanations.

George Petrolekas, formerly of NATO, offers a “reasonable reconstruction” of how Canadian Forces came to be fired upon and Steve Saideman tries to explain the confusion, while my colleague Michael Petrou argues that we’ve been operating with a faulty premise and false distinctions. The Conservatives have responded with a note to supporters and the Defence Minister is defending the right of Canadian Forces to fire back when fired upon.

In his speech to the House, the Prime Minister did say that there would be “no ground combat mission,” but what did we ever know about what special forces members on the ground in Iraq would be doing?

Here is one example—On Sept. 30, Mr. Mulcair tested the parameters in question period over the course of several questions.

Mulcair Mr. Speaker, what are the rules of engagement for the Canadian soldiers currently in Iraq?

Harper Mr. Speaker, the rules are very clear. They are there to advise and assist Iraqi forces in the northern part of the country.

Mulcair Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that the rules of engagement are to advise and assist the Iraqis, but the question is: assist them how? For instance, are Canadian soldiers currently going on patrols with Iraqis or Kurds?

Harper Mr. Speaker, I said: advise and assist the Iraqis. If I could just use the terminology in English, it is quite precise. It is to advise and to assist. It is not to accompany. I think that was laid out before the parliamentary committee.

Mulcair Mr. Speaker, are they going into combat zones?

Harper Mr. Speaker, I just said that Canadian soldiers are not accompanying the Iraqi forces into combat.

Harper Mr. Speaker, once again, as I have said, the purpose of Canadian Forces in Iraq is to assist and to advise the Iraqi forces as they have been resisting, particularly in the north, a force bent on the genocide of the people who live there. These are the actions they are undertaking. While there is some risk, there is not a direct combat role. I say once again, we are very proud of people who do this work on our behalf and keep all of us, not just in that part of the world but all of us here in Canada, safe.

Mulcair Mr. Speaker, is targeting or coordinating attacks by others a combat role? Yes or no.

Harper Mr. Speaker, as you can understand, I neither have the will nor the desire to get into detailed discussions of military operations here. As I have said repeatedly, the Canadian Forces involved in Iraq are not involved in combat. They are there to assist Iraqi and Peshmerga forces who are undertaking combat against a brutal enemy that is intent on their slaughter. We will go there and we will assist them and make sure we stop that kind of problem there and not at our own shores.

We could, perhaps should, spend a lot of time parsing this exchange (and what Canadian Forces have been doing in Iraq). It might at least be noted that the last two questions don’t receive direct answers; and it doesn’t seem those lack of answers inspired much follow-up. And, lo and behold, we now find ourselves haggling over these precise scenarios.

I presume Mr. Harper meant that he didn’t want to discuss battle plans on the floor of the House, but the federal parties now find themselves approaching a detailed discussion of military operations and that that involves any amount of consternation suggests that they should have had that detailed discussion several months ago.

Add this to the evolving discussion around parliamentary oversight and approval of military missions. The government’s current line is that a combat mission must come before the House of Commons for a vote: the current mission qualifying as such because of the aerial bombing this country was to participate in. The previous commitment of special forces to Iraq did not receive a vote because that was not considered to be engaging in ground combat. Now we are looking at a debate about what constitutes combat and what precisely is involved in a mission that otherwise doesn’t include combat. That seems like a very useful discussion to have—most usefully before the House commits to a mission.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/were-canadians-misled-about-the-mission-in-iraq/feed/9Newsmaker of the day: Haruna Yukawahttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/newsmaker-of-the-day-haruna-yukawa/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/newsmaker-of-the-day-haruna-yukawa/#commentsTue, 20 Jan 2015 19:29:31 +0000Michael Petrouhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=667735Newsmaker, Jan 20: The troubled Japanese national now a captive of Islamic State

Syria’s long and brutal civil war has sucked in and too often destroyed the lives of thousands of foreigners — from aspiring jihadists who joined the Islamic State militant group, to journalists who came to document the war and aid workers who wanted to mitigate its horrors.

But as dangers to outsiders have increased, a reality made clear by the filmed beheadings of Western hostages by Islamic State, fewer non-jihadists have been willing to risk travel to Syria. Some who do are desperate or troubled. Haruna Yukawa, a Japanese national held by Islamic State, appears to have been both.

Yukawa appears in a just-released Islamic State propaganda video alongside fellow Japanese national, freelance journalist Kenji Goto. In it, a masked jihadist who speaks in a British accent and resembles the infamous Islamic State executioner “Jihadi John” holds a knife and threatens to kill both men unless Japan’s government pays a $200 million ransom.

Prior to traveling to Syria, Yukawa had hoped to work as a mercenary and security contractor. But he had no military experience or skills, and it seems his real reasons for going were more complex.

Yukawa started a business after high school selling surplus military equipment. It failed. He later tried to kill himself by cutting off his genitals. His wife saved him, then died two years later, according to Reuters.

Yukawa seems to have been searching for meaning in his life. He adopted a feminine name. He started hanging around with Japanese nationalists. But Goto, who first met Yukawa in Syria prior to his capture, told Reuters Yukawa had a gentle personality that endeared him to a unit of Free Syrian Army rebels.

“I want to devote the rest of my life to others and save many people. I want to make my mark on history one more time,” Yukawa said in a June blog post.

Yukawa was captured after an August battle between Islamic State and his new friends in the Free Syrian Army. Goto, who was in Japan at the time, returned to Syria and somehow fell into Islamic State’s hands as well. The Islamic State militant in the propaganda video says Japan has 72 hours to pay the ransom or both will be killed.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/newsmaker-of-the-day-haruna-yukawa/feed/0Canadian general: Not clear how long special forces will be needed for Iraqi strikeshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canadian-general-not-clear-how-long-special-forces-will-be-needed-for-iraqi-strikes/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canadian-general-not-clear-how-long-special-forces-will-be-needed-for-iraqi-strikes/#commentsTue, 20 Jan 2015 19:12:07 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=667739Lt.-Gen. Jonathan Vance has critics fearing Canada is being dragged further into direct combat operations

Smoke rises from the Syrian city of Kobani, following an airstrike by the US led coalition, seen from a hilltop outside Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border Monday, Nov. 17, 2014. (Vadim Ghirda/AP)

OTTAWA – A senior Canadian military commander says it’s not clear how long it will be before Iraqi forces are able to call in coalition airstrikes against Islamic State fighters without Canada’s help.

That candid acknowledgment by Lt.-Gen. Jonathan Vance has critics fearing Canada is being dragged further into direct combat operations, contrary to what the Harper government has promised.

Vance told a briefing Monday that he wasn’t sure when the specialized training will be provided, but he expects that “down the road the Iraqi air force and army will be able to bring in and guide on” airstrikes.

Brig.-Gen. Mike Rouleau, the commander of special forces, says his troops are doing it because the Iraqis cannot, which has the added benefit of giving commanders confidence that the targets are legitimate.

Rouleau says that kind of assurance ultimately makes the process faster and safer not only for local troops, but civilians as well.

Speaking in Toronto, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says Monday’s news contradicts the government’s promise that Canada’s special forces would not be accompanying Iraqis into battle.

He pointed to an exchange in the House of Commons last fall, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeatedly made that pledge.

“Canadian soldiers are not accompanying the Iraqi forces into combat,” the prime minister said on Sept. 30.

When asked by Mulcair directly whether the troops would be “targeting or co-ordinating attacks by others in a combat role,” Harper responded that he had “neither the will nor the desire to get into detailed discussions of military operations here.”

The exchange took place at a time when the special forces were just beginning their deployment and before coalition commanders were having problems identifying targets on the ground.

Mulcair says the lack of transparency on the part of the government is shocking.

“The prime minister has not been honest with Canadians on this issue,” Mulcair said. “He has to come clean and he has to do it quickly. Every time he was asked, he said, ‘No, they would not be involved in combat.’ And every time they were involved in combat, we asked and they said, ‘No, it is not a combat mission.’

And Canadians deserve better than word games from their prime minister.”

Liberal foreign affairs critic Marc Garneau says he doesn’t to use the word mission creep, but the lack of critical detail and fudging of answers on the part of the government is worrying.

Garneau said he specifically asked Defence Minister Rob Nicholson last fall to define what he meant when he said Canadian troops would play strictly an “advise and assist” role.

He said Nicholson agreed that it meant “clearly behind the lines.”

“We’re now haggling about what assist really means,” Garneau said.

“The government will argue, well, we’re not going on an offensive. But nevertheless, our special forces are on the front lines and they’re directing airstrikes with laser pointing and things like that. So the government owes us, and the public, greater clarity on what is actually happening.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canadian-general-not-clear-how-long-special-forces-will-be-needed-for-iraqi-strikes/feed/0Bringing Canada’s role in Iraq into focushttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/bringing-canadas-role-in-iraq-into-focus/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/bringing-canadas-role-in-iraq-into-focus/#commentsTue, 20 Jan 2015 18:30:21 +0000Michael Petrouhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=667665War is war, and we've been in one ever since Canadian forces arrived in Iraq months ago, writes Michael Petrou

News Monday that Canadian special forces soldiers in Iraq were recently involved in a firefight with the Islamic State militant group should not come as a surprise—despite government claims made when it deployed Canadian troops that they would do no such thing.

Maclean’svisited several frontline positions in Iraq late last year, outposts held by Kurdish peshmerga soldiers confronting Islamic State. In places, Islamic State vehicles and fortified positions could be seen 500 m to a kilometre away, well within mortar or even rifle range. French and American soldiers had recently been to these same outposts, a Kurdish commander said.

The French and Americans are part of the same international coalition as Canada, and they’re ostensibly playing the same “non-combat” role on the ground as Canadian special forces. The Kurdish commander, however, said they were there to pick targets for coalition air strikes, something that would certainly feel like combat for those on the receiving end of them.

Now we know Canadian troops have been doing similar work. Brigadier-General Mike Rouleau, commander of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, told reporters that Canadian soldiers have called in air strikes 13 times in the past two months. This process can involve getting close to the target to “mark” it with a laser—near enough, in other words, to be shot or shelled by those about to be bombed.

Rouleau said the Canadian soldiers involved in the firefight had come to the front to “visualize” a plan they had discussed with their Iraqi counterparts, and then came under “immediate and effective mortar and machine-gun fire.” The Canadians responded with sniper fire and “neutralized” the threat.

It takes some tricky rhetorical gymnastics to describe this as anything other than ground combat, but Jason MacDonald, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, gave it his best shot. “A combat role is one in which our troops advance and themselves seek to engage the enemy physically, aggressively and directly,” he told several media outlets.

This is balderdash. Canadian soldiers operate on the front lines. They guide bombs that obliterate Islamic State fighters. It was nearly inevitable that they would come under fire eventually. Does it really matter, when we’re defining a mission as a combat one or not, who pulled the trigger first?

Still, one has to almost feel sorry for MacDonald, or for whomever wrote the lines he delivered. There’s always been a certain amount of incoherence involved in the framing of Canada’s Iraq mission. Canadian ground troops would not be involved in “direct” combat, Harper told the House of Commons last September. But how is calling in air strikes any less “direct” than spotting for artillery, or firing the guns themselves?

The answer, in part, stems from the perception among many Canadians that war has a hierarchy, that a military intervention involving only air strikes is less consequential than one consisting of ground troops, too—especially if those soldiers are actually shouldering rifles and shooting them. It’s true that air campaigns are generally safer for the Canadians involved. But they can also make a war seem less gruesome and therefore more palatable—at least for politicians voting on a mission, and for the broader public watching and passing judgment from afar.

These are false distinctions. Air strikes may appear like a less intimate method of engaging with the enemy than a bayonet charge, but the effects on the ground are more or less the same. War is war. Canada’s been in one ever since it sent CF-18s and special forces “trainers” to Iraq months ago. This firefight should at least bring that reality into sharper focus.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/bringing-canadas-role-in-iraq-into-focus/feed/8Details expected on Canada’s Iraq mission as bombing continueshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/details-expected-on-canadas-iraq-mission-as-bombing-continues/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/details-expected-on-canadas-iraq-mission-as-bombing-continues/#commentsMon, 05 Jan 2015 09:42:21 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=659713The Defence Department says it will provide the latest data since the combat mission began in November

OTTAWA – An update is expected today on Canadian military activities in the skies over Iraq as part of the international campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The Defence Department says it will provide the latest data on the number of sorties six fighter jets, a refuelling plane and two surveillance aircraft have conducted since the combat mission began in November.

Among the most recent activities were bombing missions on New Year’s Day when CF-18s attacked ISIL fighting positions and storage facilities used by the Islamist group.

The Defence Department did not provide specific details about the targets.

But information from the U.S. military suggests Canadian planes struck and destroyed shipping containers, an armoured vehicle and a front-end loader.

The American military says the Jan. 1 missions were part of 11 attacks carried out that day in Iraq against ISIL which holds about a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Canada is part of the U.S.-led air war in Iraq but has so far not joined a coalition campaign bombing ISIL targets in Syria.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/details-expected-on-canadas-iraq-mission-as-bombing-continues/feed/0Yazidis return to Iraqi villages, searching for lost loved oneshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/yazidis-return-to-iraqi-villages-searching-for-lost-loved-ones/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/yazidis-return-to-iraqi-villages-searching-for-lost-loved-ones/#commentsWed, 24 Dec 2014 10:46:18 +0000The Associated Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=656899When the Islamic State group swept through the area in early August, its fighters unleashed some of their most brutal atrocities against the Yazidis, killing hundreds

HARDAN, Iraq – After he fled from this tiny northern Iraqi hamlet four months ago, Hayder Khalef got panicked phone calls from his relatives who had remained behind. They were at that moment being led by Islamic State group gunmen toward a checkpoint on the edge of town.

“If you don’t hear from us, you’ll find our bodies near the checkpoint,” Khalef said they told him in the calls.

He is back in his hometown for the first time since, after Iraqi Kurdish fighters last week drove out the extremists holding the village. Khalef and a few other residents who escaped followed the Kurds in, hoping to discover what happened to hundreds of their relatives and neighbours who vanished after the jihadis overran Hardan in early August.

They fear they know where they are: four mounds of recently dug-up earth. The sites have not yet been excavated, but Khalef and others are convinced they are mass graves, possibly holding dozens of dead. From the loose top soil, they and Kurdish fighters pulled out pieces of clothing as an Associated Press reporter watched.

At one point, they tugged on the elastic waistband of pants visible in the dirt – and it seemed a body was still wearing them. The ground bulged with the weight of a body being pulled up with the waistband. They stopped pulling, fearing booby traps, before a body could be clearly seen. But an ID card and some prayer beads fell out of the pants pocket – the ID of a 44-year-old man named Khero Khudeda Rufo. One returning resident, Khaled Wase, recognized the name as a neighbour who is among the missing.

There is no way to definitively say the mounds are graves or know how many bodies are in them until they are dug up. The Kurds have no plan to do so immediately, though they have cordoned off the four sites with tape. Fighting continues with Islamic State militants not far away, and the situation is too unstable to deal with searching for bodies. But Wase and Khalef say they are certain their loved ones are buried in the sites.

“They are all from my village and some of my cousins were arrested (by the militants) and may be here,” Wase said, referring to the earth mounds. “My relatives are there along with all those from my village.” Wase and Khalef estimate that some 530 people are missing from Hardan, out of an original population of about 200 families, and he believes most were killed by the militants.

Hardan is one of a number of tiny villages dotting the plains of northern Iraq populated by members of the Yazidi religious community. When the Islamic State group swept through the area in early August, its fighters unleashed some of their most brutal atrocities against the Yazidis – whom they consider heretics. Hundreds were killed, and the militants abducted hundreds of Yazidi women and girls, enlisting them as sex slaves given to their fighters and supporters, according to accounts by escaped women and reports collected by the U.N. and rights groups.

On Aug. 3 – the same day they took the largest town in the area, Sinjar – the militants appeared at the entrance to Hardan in eight black SUVs, backed by Sunni Muslims from neighbouring villages, Wase recounted. They ordered residents to hand over any weapons they possessed or else the extremists would behead their families, Wase said. The residents complied. Some fled that very night, including Wase and Khalef. Others were unable to leave, however, and stayed, hoping for the best, they said.

Wase said he made his way across the nearby Syrian border. He too received phone calls from relatives saying they were being taken by the militants toward a checkpoint on the side of town. He and Khalef said they were told about 150 people were taken to the checkpoint. What happened next is unknown, but both men believe all were killed.

Khalef said he also got a call from one of his cousins who hid in the village and saw the families being marched to the checkpoint and later saw an earthmover digging in the nearby fields. “My uncle and two of his sons along with 50 others I know from Hardan” are among those missing, Khalef said.

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters recaptured Hardan on Friday, and a handful of Yazidi residents quickly followed to search for loved ones. They found three of the mounds in a field. Wase said he found a headband and scarf he recognized as belonging to his relatives in one mound. At a spot about 100 metres (yards) away, the earth was scorched and littered with clothing, womens’ shoes and a baby’s pacifier.

The fourth site was found Sunday when the peshmerga were setting up a position and digging a latrine, and they noticed clothes in the dirt. It was there that they tugged at the half-buried pants that appeared to still be on a body.

Sammy Tahar, a 44-year-old peshmerga fighter, said he too believes the mounds are graves. “This is the worst of Daesh and the terrorists,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. “They brought these innocent people who were just minding their own business and they killed them.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/yazidis-return-to-iraqi-villages-searching-for-lost-loved-ones/feed/0Women excised from public life, abused by Islamic State militantshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/women-excised-from-public-life-abused-by-islamic-state-militants/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/women-excised-from-public-life-abused-by-islamic-state-militants/#commentsTue, 23 Dec 2014 09:48:50 +0000The Associated Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=656469A report by Amnesty International released Tuesday said captives – including girls as young as 10-12 – endured torture, rape and sexual slavery

BEIRUT – The gunmen came to the all-girls’ elementary school in the Iraqi city of Fallujah at midday with a special delivery: piles of long black robes with gloves and face veils, now required dress code for females in areas ruled by the Islamic State group.

“These are the winter version. Make sure every student gets one,” one of the men told a supervisor at the school earlier this month.

Extremists are working to excise women from public life across the territory controlled by the Islamic State group, stretching hundreds of kilometres from the outskirts of the Syrian city of Aleppo in the west to the edges of the Iraqi capital in the east.

The group has been most notorious for its atrocities, including the horrors it inflicted on women and girls from Iraq’s minority Yazidi community when its fighters overran their towns this year. Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were abducted and given to extremists as slaves. A report by Amnesty International released Tuesday said the captives – including girls as young as 10-12 – endured torture, rape and sexual slavery, and that several abducted girls committed suicide.

In day-to-day life, the group has also dramatically hemmed in women’s lives across the Sunni Muslim heartland that makes up the bulk of Islamic State group territory, activists and residents say. Their movements are restricted and their opportunity for work has shrunk.

In Iraq’s Mosul, the biggest city in the group’s self-declared caliphate, “life for women has taken a 180-degree turn,” said Hanaa Edwer, a prominent Iraqi human rights activist. “They are forbidding them from learning, forbidding them from moving around freely. The appearance of a woman is being forcefully altered.”

At least eight women have been stoned to death for alleged adultery in IS-controlled areas in northern Syria, activists say.

At least 10 women in Mosul have been killed for speaking out against the group, Edwer said. In August, IS detained and beheaded a female dentist in Deir el-Zour who had continued to treat patients of both sexes, the U.N. said.

Relatives of women considered improperly dressed or found in the company of males who are not relatives are lashed or imprisoned. In the IS-controlled town of al-Bab in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, an activist described seeing armed militants walking with a stick in hand, gently whacking or jabbing at women deemed inappropriately dressed.

“Sometimes they follow the woman home and detain her father, or they confiscate her ID and tell her to come back with her father to pick it up,” said Bari Abdelatif, now based in Turkey.

Enforcement varies from one place to the other, much of it depending on the whims of the Hisba, or vice police enforcing those rules. Most of the areas taken over by IS were already deeply conservative places where women had a subordinate role in society, but the extremists have sharply exacerbated the restrictions.

Abdelatif said women in al-Bab are harassed for venturing outside their home without a “mahram,” or male guardian. In the Syrian city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital, activists said women were allowed to leave their homes on their own, but needed a male companion or permission of a male relative to leave the city.

An IS all-female brigade, called al-Khansa, patrols the streets in some areas to enforce clothing restrictions.

Across the territory, women now have to wear the “khimar,” a tent-like robe that covers the head, shoulders and chest. The khimar leaves the face exposed but very often the militants go ahead and force women to put a niqab veil over their faces as well, leaving only the eyes visible.

In the Iraqi city of Fallujah, an elementary school teacher said militants recently dropped by the school to deliver the niqab, robes and gloves for the students to wear.

“I used to wear make-up on occasion but I don’t anymore,” she said, speaking by phone on strict condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The militants have segregated schools and changed the curriculum. In some cases they shut schools down, summoning teachers to take a course in their hard-line version of Islamic Shariah law before reopening them. In many instances in both Iraq and Syria, parents have opted not to send their children to school to avoid IS brainwashing them.

Hospitals have also been segregated. A woman has to be seen by a female doctor, but there are very few women doctors left.

Early marriage is on the rise because parents want to find husbands for their daughters quickly for fear they will be forced to marry Islamic State fighters, according to the U.N.

“The psychological and physical harm caused by ISIS’s treatment of women, the onerous instructions imposed on their dress code, and restrictions on their freedom of movement demonstrate discriminatory treatment on the basis of gender,” a United Nations panel investigating war crimes in the Syrian conflict said last month.

It said the killings and acts of sexual violence perpetrated by IS constitute crimes against humanity.

While the Islamic State group imposes its extremist vision of Islamic law on Sunni Muslim women under its rule, it went further when it overran the Iraqi villages of the Yazidi minority in early August. The extremists consider followers of the Yazidi faith as infidels – and thus permissible to enslave.

Amnesty International interviewed more than 40 former captives who escaped the militants and described being abducted, raped and being “sold” or given as “gifts” to Islamic State fighters or supporters.

One girl told how a 19-year-old among them named Jilan committed suicide, fearing rape.

In the bathroom, “she cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful,” the girl quoted in the report said. “I think she knew she was going to be taken away by a man.”

OTTAWA — Canadian warplanes have been in action in Iraq once again, bombing enemy targets ahead of Kurdish Peshmerga forces who are pushing to completely break the siege in the Sinjar mountains.

The region along the Syrian border was home to many members of the Yazidi minority before extremist fighters swept in last August, killing or abducting hundreds and prompting tens of thousands of refugees to flee through the mountains.

Col. Dan Constable, the commander of Canada’s task force for the Iraq mission, says two CF-18s bombed an enemy position about 100 kilometres northwest of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

The extremists had erected “defensive fighting positions and safe havens, places where they can engage from,” Constable said in a teleconference from an undisclosed base in Kuwait where the Canadian jets are based. ”We were requested to take those fighting positions out.”

It is part of a stepped-up air campaign by the U.S.-led coalition battling militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The coalition carried out 61 strike missions from Dec. 15-17.

Since beginning combat operations in late October, the CF-18s have flown 130 sorties and carried out nine bombing runs.

The Peshmerga, according to local media reports, launched a two-pronged assault on the region Wednesday and claimed some success with the apparent liberation of three villages.

Local commanders claimed Thursday they had secured a route into the region.

One line of the offensive runs from Mosul dam towards the encircled mountains, where U.S. and Australian transport planes have been dropping humanitarian supplies to the hundreds refugees still clinging to the mountainside.

Earlier in the fall, the Kurds were able to temporarily open a corridor into the area but have been unable to keep it open.

Constable said he believes there are signs ISIL has over-extended itself, but declined to characterize the kind of fight Kurdish forces are facing on the road to Sinjar.

That was something for a higher U.S. headquarters — or Iraqi officials — to comment on, said Constable, who suggested the momentum was shifting slowly from halting the expansion of ISIL towards pushing them back.

“For the most part, I would say we’ve seen nothing but them being on the defensive and the strikes that have been in the last few days have been showing that.”

Iraqi forces have, for the most part, been tied up safeguarding an annual Shiite pilgrimage; now that it’s over, they are expected to begin trying to retake territory from ISIL fighters.

But Lt.-Gen. James Terry, the U.S. commander overseeing the mission in the region, called for patience, saying the campaign would take “at least take a minimum of three years.”

At the same time, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that at least three top Islamic State officials had been killed in operations during the past few weeks.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the newspaper the operations are part of an expanding coalition effort ahead of a planned offensive next year by Iraqi forces.

Constable wouldn’t speculate on whether Canada’s combat mission, due to expire in April, will be extended.

Plans are being drawn up that detail how the air force would carry on and separately the branch is drafting proposal for winding things down, he said.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/cf-18s-hit-targets-as-kurds-launch-offensive-to-break-sinjar-siege/feed/1The Vicar of Baghdad and the lost Christians of Iraqhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-vicar-of-baghdad-and-the-lost-christians-of-iraq/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-vicar-of-baghdad-and-the-lost-christians-of-iraq/#commentsWed, 17 Dec 2014 15:24:45 +0000Rachel Brownehttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=652929For years, Reverend Canon Andrew White worked in Baghdad—until Islamic State forced him away from his flock

For Reverend Canon Andrew White, St. George’s Anglican Church, located in the heart of Iraq’s Red Zone, is the most wonderful church in the world. When he first laid eyes on it in 1998, it had been 14 years since anyone had worshipped inside, and it was in a state of disrepair; it was filthy and had been infested with pigeons. Only the stained-glass windows from 1936 that depicted British regimental crests remained in good condition. (They would be stolen years later during the 2003 invasion.) White had just arrived from England to begin his new appointment as vicar of Iraq’s only Anglican church, and he got right to work. Within a few years, he had restored the building, and by this summer, his congregation had grown to more than 1,200 Iraqi Christians.

Now, he has no idea how many of them are left. In the last several months, more than 100,000 Christians from across the country have fled from ISIS, also known as Islamic State, to the Kurdistan region and neighbouring countries.

Most of White’s congregation has sought refuge in Nineveh, the traditional homeland for Iraqi Christians. “But it was there that ISIS came to kill them,” White told Maclean’s. “Most of my staff have relocated there to provide their basic needs, their food, clothes, everything.” As president of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, he carries out conflict resolution efforts in the region and provides humanitarian relief to refugees of any faith.

Iraq has always been a dangerous place for White, commonly known as the Vicar of Baghdad. Over his years there, he has been beaten, held at gunpoint, kidnapped, and held hostage in a room surrounded by rats and dismembered fingers and toes. It got to the point where he could travel only by armoured car, accompanied by as many as 35 security guards. But this summer, with the rise of Islamic State, the situation became almost unbearable. Much of his staff had left, the death threats against him became more frequent and severe, and Islamic State issued a $57-million bounty for him, dead or alive. On top of everything, White has lived with multiple sclerosis for more than 18 years.

“I’m so used to threats and dangers. It doesn’t worry me, though,” said White. “That’s what really worries the embassies and the security forces: the fact that I’m fearful about nothing and I’m not scared.”

But last month, the Archbishop of Canterbury, White’s boss, ordered him to leave Iraq for good. At first he didn’t take it seriously – he’s been asked to leave many times before. “It’s very unusual for me to be an obedient servant,” White said. His sense of humour – dry, unapologetic – comes across immediately. “But I finally realized that he was right. He told me that I was of more use alive than dead. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever heard, but I had to leave.”

For the last few weeks, White has been travelling around North America, taking meetings and speaking to church groups. But he constantly stays in touch with his flock through phone calls and Facebook—and more often than not, the news on their end is devastating. “One of the first things I heard was that a young child who I had baptized as a baby was cut in half by ISIS,” he said. “His name was Andrew, after me. I can’t cope with the fact that our children, children I loved, are being massacred.”

For now, Sarah Ahmed, a 27-year-old Muslim dentist from Baghdad, will be White’s eyes and ears in Iraq. She met White in New York last year at a conference and he offered her a job. She’s since become the director of the foundation. Lately, she’s been travelling with her assistant to the refugee camps across northern Iraq to provide relief and counselling. In August, she got a call from a Christian man living in a camp with his family. “He told me to bring gasoline with me the next time I came and to pour it on them to set them on fire because dying is better than living like this,” she said. “I tried to comfort him, to tell him that I’m here for him.” It’s these moments that upset her most, but also motivate her to do more. ”I feel that what I am doing is an example of what everybody in Iraq should also do,” she said.

Like White, Ahmed too faces threats of kidnapping and death on a regular basis. Extremists hate the work she is doing, especially because she’s a Muslim. “Friends tell me that I should take off my headscarf while I’m working in the camps, they are worried that Christians and other religions will see me as a threat,” she said. “But this never happens. They know I’m not the threat and that ISIS doesn’t represent Islam.”

White frequently asks Ahmed whether she’s Sunni or Shia. “But I’ve never told him; nobody knows,” she said. “I define myself as just Muslim. I don’t like to contribute to these divisions.”

Many of White’s parishioners have ended up in Jordan, where he can meet with them in relative safety. He and Ahmed are starting a new centre there that will provide health and education services as well as a new church.

Last week, White stood up to speak to packed pews at St. Paul’s Anglican church in Toronto. He began by praying in Aramaic: “If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.” He reminded the congregation that Iraq is the most mentioned place in the Bible–then known as Mesopotamia. When God made the world, he likely created it in Iraq, he said.

“If I was to say I would never go back, I don’t know how I would survive. The moment I’m given my first opportunity, I will be there,” he said. “Yes, I foresee that happening.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-vicar-of-baghdad-and-the-lost-christians-of-iraq/feed/1CF-18s bomb Islamic State bunkers near Iraq’s second largest cityhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/cf-18s-bomb-islamic-state-bunkers-near-iraqs-second-largest-city/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/cf-18s-bomb-islamic-state-bunkers-near-iraqs-second-largest-city/#commentsFri, 12 Dec 2014 15:06:23 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=652407OTTAWA – Canadian warplanes have conducted another attack on Islamic State forces.
Two CF-18s Hornets bombed an extremist fighting position about 250 kilometres southwest of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.…

OTTAWA – Canadian warplanes have conducted another attack on Islamic State forces.

Two CF-18s Hornets bombed an extremist fighting position about 250 kilometres southwest of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

National Defence reports the attack, which happened Wednesday, was carried out with laser-guide munitions and a Canadian C-140 Aurora surveillance plane provided intelligence and reconnaissance support.

Over 114 sorties have been carried out since the fighter jets deployed to Kuwait in support of the U.S.-led coalition.

Last week, Canadian jets supporting Iraqi security forces north-east of Mosul also dropped bombs on Islamic State bunkers and two heavy machine gun emplacements.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/cf-18s-bomb-islamic-state-bunkers-near-iraqs-second-largest-city/feed/0What 2015 holds for Islamic Statehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/what-2015-holds-for-islamic-state/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/what-2015-holds-for-islamic-state/#commentsFri, 12 Dec 2014 11:19:41 +0000Adnan R. Khanhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=651201Chaos has been contained in Iraq. It could spell the beginning of the end of Islamic State.

The past year was a banner one for radical Islam. Led by Islamic State, global jihad re-entered the Western consciousness with a force many considered unimaginable in the post-9/11 era. Large chunks of Iraq and Syria are now brutally controlled by Islamic State. But while its grip on power may be absolute, it is far from guaranteed. In fact, in the year ahead, Islamic State may well be contained—driven from Iraq and marginalized in Syria.

If there is a lesson to be taken from the rapid rise of Islamic State, it is that radical groups thrive where there is chaos. Back in June, when Islamic State militants swept into Mosul and other parts of Iraq’s north and west, it seemed as if the country was on the point of collapse. Its army disintegrated and the political environment in Baghdad, already poisoned by sectarianism, edged closer to outright fracture. But, since then, a new prime minister has created an environment more conducive to compromise between Iraq’s Shia majority and its Sunni minority. On Dec. 2, the Kurds and the central government signed a historic oil and revenue-sharing agreement, eliminating a major obstacle to unity that had existed since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. Consequently, the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq appears to be working.

Most experts agree that Iraq will continue to creep toward stability in the coming year. “Islamic State has gone about as far as it can there,” says James Joyner, an associate professor at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Va., and a senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. “The bombing campaign was useful in stopping its advance.” According to Canadian defence department officials, the pace of the coalition air war, which includes six CF-18 jet fighters, has slowed over the past weeks. “This shows the coalition is having an effect,” Capt. Paul Forget, a Canadian military spokesman, said recently.

The real problem, says Joyner, is that in Syria, a toxic mix of warring factions and their international backers make formulating a cohesive strategy next to impossible. Turkey, a NATO member and U.S. ally, supports Syrian Islamists such as the Islamic Front and, to a lesser degree, the al-Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra. U.S. warplanes bomb them. The U.S., meanwhile, supports the efforts of Syrian Kurds against Islamic State incursions into their territory. In Turkey’s view, the Kurds are more of a threat than Islamic State. Iran supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad against the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army, while also aiding the U.S. in its fight against Islamic State in Iraq. “Muddling through is the only option,” says Joyner. “As a global power, the U.S. has too many mutually contradictory interests in that region to be effective.”

As a result, the Obama administration has failed miserably in Syria. While Qatar and Turkey strengthened the Islamists, the U.S. wasted time trying to manage a fragmented and unbalanced Free Syrian Army. Jihadism got the upper hand. In striking out at Islamic State, other groups, such as the Jabhat al-Nusra and the ultra-orthodox Ahrar al-Sham, were also hit. These groups now sit precariously on the fence between confronting Islamic State and joining it, fuelled by a growing perception that the U.S. intervention in Syria is turning into a war on Islam.

How successful the fight to destroy Islamic State is depends on how successful the U.S. is in either changing that perception or limiting its role in Syria. The push will be on in 2015 to find a political solution to the civil war there. And the Assad regime will find itself in a much better negotiating position, as the battle lines between secularists and jihadists deepen. Sadly, the downfall of Islamic State, whenever it comes, may well mean the survival of Assad.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/what-2015-holds-for-islamic-state/feed/0Harper says he doesn’t support war on Syria, only ISILhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/harper-says-he-doesnt-support-war-on-syria-only-isil/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/harper-says-he-doesnt-support-war-on-syria-only-isil/#commentsFri, 14 Nov 2014 08:15:37 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=639017The prime minister was on an official visit to New Zealand on the eve of the G20 meetings in Brisbane, Australia this weekend

AUCKLAND, New Zealand – On the eve of a G20 summit in Australia expected to focus in part on the crisis in Syria and Iraq, Stephen Harper says Canada does not support war on the Syrian government or any Middle East nation – only war against the Islamic State.

“The government of Canada is prepared to engage in actions against ISIL in Syria but only as long as those are not interpreted as war against the government of Syria,” the prime minister told a news conference Friday at the end of his first official visit to New Zealand.

“Whatever objections the government of Canada has against the government of Syria, we are not interested in any war against any government in the region – our only military fight is with ISIL.”

Harper spoke a few hours after a military official revealed that Canadian warplanes have destroyed only two Islamic State targets in nearly two weeks of air operations.

The mission commander said success can’t be measured in the number of bombs dropped, because the air campaign is putting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on the defensive.

U.S. President Barack Obama, meantime, has reportedly developed a new strategy to defeat the al Qaida splinter group – starting with the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Americans believe Assad is the reason ISIL have been able to gain strength in Syria.

Harper pointed out that his government has long called for the resignation of the Syrian leader.

But he added that the government believes that “the only way we can get a solution in Syria is some kind of political compromise between moderate elements of the opposition as well as the moderate elements of the government.”

“We don’t think it’s possible to bring the diverse elements of Syria together unless you have both sides come together in some way, that a victory of one side over the other is just not a realistic or desirable outcome.”

Nonetheless, he added, the fight has to be taken against ISIL and other extremists that threaten Canada and other western countries.

The prime minister was also asked about the major U.S.-China climate deal announced earlier this week, asking when Canada would match the more ambitious greenhouse gas emission targets contained in that landmark agreement.

He didn’t answer the question directly, instead praising the deal and citing Canada’s accomplishments on climate.

“We have been saying that we favour an international agreement that will include the major emitters,” he said, pointing out that China and the U.S. are the No. 1 and No. 2 GHG emitters in the world.

Harper said that Canada has the cleanest electrical sector in the world, and added the U.S.-China deal shouldn’t have any impact on the fate of the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline.

The news conference marked the end of Harper’s visit to New Zealand and set the stage for his arrival later Friday in Brisbane for the G20 summit, one that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said will have a heavy economic focus.

The prime minister’s day in Auckland involved rubbing noses with Maori ceremonial warriors as well as laying a wreath at the Auckland war memorial.

Harper and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key reflected on their close ties during the news conference.

Key laughingly praised the Canadian flag, saying he is running a “successful” campaign to change the New Zealand flag to one that is more recognizably Kiwi.

He has frequently pointed to Canada’s switch to its famous Maple Leaf flag in 1965 as evidence that it won’t dishonour New Zealand’s war dead by having a new ensign.

OTTAWA – Canadian warplanes have destroyed only two Islamic State targets in nearly two weeks of air operations, but the commander of the mission says success can’t be measured in the number of bombs dropped.

The air campaign is putting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on the “defensive,” prompting militants to hide vehicles and equipment from the prying eyes of surveillance aircraft, Col. Dan Constable insisted Thursday.

“They’re hiding more,” Constable said via conference call from the secret base in Kuwait where Canadian CF-18 jets have been operating.

“They’re providing fewer targets, which also means they’re a less a capable force.”

He provided more details on Tuesday’s bombing mission near Bayji, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, in which a Canadian laser-guided bomb obliterated an Islamic State artillery piece that was apparently being moved along a road.

“The battle damage assessment shows the main target — the artillery piece — was destroyed, and there likely were ISIL casualties,” Constable said. Only militants were operating in the area and no civilians were hit, he added.

Constable was unable to say whether the enemy target was a howitzer or a truck-mounted, rocket-propelled artillery piece. One of Canada’s CP-140 Aurora spy planes had been operating in the area, but he would not say if it played a role.

Canada’s first airstrike on Nov. 2 destroyed heavy construction equipment that was being used to construct defensive positions near Fallujah.

The assertion that ISIL is keeping its head down comes just days after a separate U.S.-led coalition airstrike near the occupied city of Mosul that apparently wounded the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The airstrike hit a convoy of vehicles that included a number of senior ISIL leaders and was out in the open and moving when it was hit.

Also Thursday, al-Baghdadi resurfaced in an audio recording that taunted a number of coalition countries, including Canada, saying they are frightened and “stumbling between fear, weakness, inability, and failure.”

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney wasted no time using the recording as political ammunition, issuing a statement that characterized the jeer as another instance where “terrorists directly threaten violence against Canada.”

There has been criticism in Washington that too few airstrikes are taking place in Iraq and Syria, compared with other recent campaigns in Libya and elsewhere.

But Constable said the bombing campaign has forced ISIL to “pause its offensive movements” and switch to the defensive. Over the long term, he said, he’s confident the coalition will “ultimately defeat” the group.

During the parliamentary debate that authorized the use of Canadian warplanes, opposition MPs feared that Canada would find few remaining targets in the wake of initial U.S. attacks in late August and September.

Meanwhile, there are reports the U.S. is considering a major change in strategy. On Wednesday, CNN said President Barack Obama has asked his national security team to review its Syria policy and whether ISIL can be defeated without the removal of President Bashar al-Assad.

Canada’s combat commitment is currently limited to Iraq, although Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said it could be expanded into Syria if the Syrian government gives its permission.

The U.S. Central Command — CENTCOM — has also issued notice that a week-long planning conference is underway ay MacDill Air Force Base in Florida involving the 30 nations that are part of the coalition.

A respected Washington-based think-tank issued a report Thursday saying the U.S. “has only made slow and unstable progress in developing a strategy.”

Anthony Cordesman, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. needs to set real, tangible objectives and timelines for the military campaign.

“The U.S. has talked about ‘degrading and destroying’ the Islamic State without setting clear goals for what this actually means,” he wrote.

“It initially focused on a very limited air campaign to both halt (ISIL) gains and attack key Islamic State centres in Syria. This effort came too late and was so publicly foreshadowed that key elements of the Islamic State were able to heed the strategic warning and disperse and shelter in populated areas.”

In Iraq, Cordesman said the coalition is betting that Iraqi unity will help turn the tide, but no efforts have been made to reach out to disaffected Sunnis who are sympathetic to — or outright supporters of — the extremists.

BAGHDAD – Iraqi soldiers battling the Islamic State group recaptured the heart of the town of Beiji, home to the country’s largest oil refinery, state television and a military official said Tuesday.

Retaking Beiji, 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, could allow Iraqi forces a base to attack neighbouring Tikrit, taken by the extremists after their lightning advance this summer. It also represents a morale boost for Iraq’s beleaguered security forces, which saw many of its troop flee the militant offensive.

State television quoted the top army commander in Beiji, Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, as saying troops recaptured the city’s local government and police headquarters at the centre of the town. It aired what appeared to be archival footage of the town.

A senior military official reached by telephone in Beiji confirmed the recapture of the city centre, but added that intense clashes continued elsewhere in the town. The official told The Associated Press that 75 per cent of Beiji was now in the hands of government troops. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

Government officials in Baghdad offered no immediate comment on the reports. Al-Saadi said Saturday that his forces had recaptured most of the city and that it would soon be entirely rid of Islamic State group fighters.

There was no word on the fate of the refinery, which lies on the outskirts of the town and has been besieged by Islamic State fighters since June. The small army unit inside the refinery, resupplied and reinforced by air for months, successfully resisted wave after wave of extremist assaults.

Recapturing Beiji would be a major victory for Iraq’s Shiite-led government and could pave the way for a fresh offensive to drive Islamic State militants from the nearby city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown and the capital of Salahuddin province.

Airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition have aided Iraqi forces, militias and Kurdish peshmerga fighters battling Islamic State militants. Hundreds of U.S. advisers and trainers also have been working with the Iraqis.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/inside-canadas-new-war/feed/0Free Syrian Army says Canada should be training ISIL resistancehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/free-syrian-army-says-canada-should-be-training-isil-resistance/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/free-syrian-army-says-canada-should-be-training-isil-resistance/#commentsMon, 03 Nov 2014 09:29:23 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=634217A senior member of the Syrian says Canada's effort would be better spent on training ground forces than engaging in a bombing campaign

KUWAIT CITY – A senior member of the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime says Canada’s time, effort and money would be better spent training ground forces to retake territory from the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, rather than on a bombing campaign.

Brig.-Gen. Hussam Alawak, who heads up intelligence for the Free Officers Movement – one arm of the Free Syrian Army – also warned in an interview with The Canadian Press that new anti-aircraft weapons threatening coalition jets come from looted stockpiles in Libya and more potent weapons may be on the way.

Alawak, who defected prior to the Arab Spring uprising, says the current U.S.-led bombing campaign will not dislodge the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and may drive up recruitment to the group.

Operations involving Canadian fighter-bombers continued over the weekend with two CF-18s dropping bombs on ISIL targets near Fallujah, west of Baghdad, but the air force refused to provide updated details on the mission other than to say all aircraft returned safely to base.

Chinese-made FN-6 heat-seeking missiles – known as Manpads – have begun appearing in Iraq. Alawak claims they come from a cache of thousands weapons provided by Qatar to anti-Gaddafi fighters, which fell into the hands of Libya’s top extremists following NATO’s 2011 bombing campaign.

They were transferred to Syria through a warehouse belonging to extremists in Turkey, he said.

Alawak, who was a senior intelligence officer in the Syrian air force before opposing the Assad regime, says the air campaign will be “almost useless” in grand scheme of things and that the main effort should be put towards forming armies of liberation.

“If Canada wants to continue in a useless thing, then it’s up to them,” said Alawak, who spoke through a translator after returning to Cario.

He praised the Harper government’s strident anti-Assad rhetoric and Canada’s efforts to accept Syrian refugees, but pointed to the recently concluded military training mission in Afghanistan as an example of something more effective that Canadian forces could be doing.

Prior to the departure of Canadian warplanes, the country’s top military commanders acknowledged that Washington had sounded out its partners about contributing to such a program in Iraq only, but underlined it was something the Harper government had not considered.

There is a need “to get Iraqi security forces on their feet and be able to conduct ground operations” against enemy militants, Lt.-Gen. Jonathan Vance, the country’s domestic and overseas operations commander, said on Oct. 17.

“This indeed will take an effort – a training effort. That the U.S. is looking to trusted partners – amongst whom are NATO – to consider this is not unexpected.”

There were published reports in the U.S. that NATO had been approached by Washington to organize it, but a spokesman for the military alliance’s senior commander said the formal request would have to come from the Iraqi government.

Lt.-Col. Jay Janzen said the allies agreed at the leader’s summit in Wales that if the new government of Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad asked for capacity-building help, “including building more effective security forces,” the alliance would consider it.

“To date a request has not been received, but our offer stands,” he said in an email last week.

The U.S. policy in Syria is to recruit and train opposition force to defend territory, rather than to seize it back from the Islamic State, according to administration officials who spoke to the Washington Post on Oct. 23.

Characterizing it as a defensive posture seems aimed at not provoking a wider conflict involving Iran and Russia, which both back Assad.

Alawak says his group recently held talks in Jordan with the U.S., France and Britain and made it clear they will not participate unless they get to choose who is trained because they know better who is and who is not an extremist.

U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said they want to build an “effective opposition force, not just a hit-and-run group of rebels,” but Alawak says he doesn’t see that happening in the near future.

He is also suspicious of who the Americans are courting as potential partners in the region.

“I hope the American intelligence – the CIA – should be more selective in choosing opposition figures, and (should not) choose just anyone. They should choose reliable persons,” Alawak said.

“What will make Assad survive is the divide of the American administration and he is depending on such division.”

KUWAIT CITY – Canadian warplanes have flown their first operational flights, but have yet to carry out strike missions against Islamic State targets.

Six CF-18 jet fighters, two CP-140 Aurora surveillance planes and a C-150 refuelling jet are operating out of undisclosed airfields in Kuwait and will launch bombing missions against the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant soon.

“Operational flights have begun,” said a senior defence source. “No bombs have been dropped, but ops are indeed underway.”

The source would not reveal when the missions were conducted and what sort of tasks the fighters carried out, whether it was training or combat air patrols, or if the Auroras have started to carry out surveillance of potential ISIL targets.

Word of the missions comes from a series of defence sources because the Canadian military has not allowed media access to the airfields, citing security concerns of their Kuwaiti hosts.

The aircraft receive their strike orders and targets from the U.S.-led coalition and join aircraft from a number of different countries, including the U.S., Britain, Australia and several Gulf States.

The jets will be bombing military targets, such as command centres, vehicles and artillery, most of which is U.S-made hardware that Islamic State fighters seized from fleeing Iraqi army forces earlier this summer.

A number of fresh reports are circulating that coalition jets could face an increased anti-aircraft threat as Islamic State fighters are now apparently armed with sophisticated shoulder-launched missiles.

U.S. officials, speaking on background to the New York Times earlier this week, described the appearance of the Chinese-made FN-6 heat-seeking missiles as “game changers.” It is believed the weapons were originally provided to moderate Syrian rebels by Qatar and possibly Saudi Arabia, according to the report.

The missiles are a major threat to low-flying aircraft, such as attack helicopters. ISIL reportedly shot down an Iraqi Army Apache gunship using the weapons.

Prior to the beginning of the campaign, Canadian military commanders acknowledged the anti-aircraft threat, but noted that both the CF-18s and the Auroras can fly higher than the effective range of the missiles, known as Manpads.

A bigger concern, according to defence experts, is that Islamic State fighters might get their hands on an SA-24, the latest generation of Russia-made anti-aircraft weapons. The Iraqi government recently acquired such a system and those missiles have a longer range and the ability to manoeuvre in a more nimble fashion to avoid the counter-measures of its target.

The Canadian contribution to the air campaign is mandated to last six months, but is likely to be extended.

The operations are being carried out under a blanket of secrecy as western bases, embassies and institutions throughout the Gulf region remains on heightened security alert for possible retaliation by Islamic State supporters.

George E. Irani, a professor at the American University of Kuwait, said the school circulated a memo on Wednesday warning of threats and urging vigilance.

A jidahist website, earlier this week, urged supporters to attack western schools, specifically teachers, but U.S. officials say no direct threat has been uncovered thus far.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/first-cf-18-operational-missions-over-iraq-completed/feed/0Soldier’s death strengthens resolve of troops: defence ministerhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/soldiers-death-strengthens-resolve-of-troops-defence-minister/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/soldiers-death-strengthens-resolve-of-troops-defence-minister/#commentsTue, 21 Oct 2014 19:28:57 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=626551Rob Nicholson called death of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent a "senseless act" that will only strengthen the military's determination

COLD LAKE, Alta. – Six Canadian fighter jets left to join an international combat mission against Islamic State extremists in Iraq on Tuesday as the defence minister paid tribute to a soldier killed at home.

Rob Nicholson called the death of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., a “senseless act” that will only strengthen the military’s determination.

“As we deploy our CF-18s and Hercules aircraft, all Canadians should be proud of our men and women in uniform who are dedicated to providing safety and security whenever they are called upon,” Nicholson said after the jets deployed from the Cold Lake military base in northern Alberta.

“Our Canadian armed forces members represent the best of Canada, and to have one die in such a senseless act only strengthens our resolve.”

Police in Quebec say a car was driven deliberately into Vincent and a fellow soldier on Monday. The driver was shot and killed by police after a chase. The second soldier is expected to survive.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney has said the act is clearly linked to terrorist ideology.

The CF-18 Hornets that took off from Alberta are heading to Kuwait, which will serve as Canada’s base of operations in the combat mission.

About 600 personnel — along with the jets, two surveillance planes and an aerial tanker — are to be based in Kuwait.

The Ottawa-based Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, known as FinTRAC, has passed along information to investigators as part of the government’s effort to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, says centre director Gerald Cossette.

Many Canadians have never heard of the centre, which keeps a relatively low profile compared with other national security agencies.

However, financial intelligence has become a “key component” of terrorism investigations by the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Cossette said during a recent talk hosted by Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

“With ISIL, we have seen very clearly the devastation that terrorist groups can inflict when they have access to substantial resources,” he said.

The agency’s access to information about banking and other financial transactions allows it to see links between people and groups in Canada and abroad that support terrorist activities — including radicalized Canadians bent on waging guerrilla-style war in strife-ridden Iraq and Syria.

“Our main role in such an operation would be to respond, basically, to the demand for information from our security partners — be it CSIS or the RCMP,” Cossette said in an interview after the session.

“In fact, we did disclose to them information about a certain number of individuals already.”

The centre zeroes in on cash linked to terrorism, money laundering and other crimes by sifting through data from banks, insurance companies, securities dealers, money service businesses, real estate brokers, casinos and others.

Institutions must report large cash transactions or electronic fund transfers of $10,000 or more, as well as any dealings where there are reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering or terrorist financing.

In turn, FinTRAC discloses intelligence to law enforcement and national security partners.

Overall, the centre made 234 disclosures last year specifically related to terrorist financing and threats to the security of Canada — a 450 per cent increase from 2008.

It is difficult to pin down how many of those disclosures were related to possible travelling extremists, Cossette said.

“When we do receive requests, let’s say from CSIS or the RCMP, they do not necessarily specifically mention that it’s about somebody who wants to travel abroad,” he said.

“It may be somebody operating here, it may be somebody abroad, it may be somebody coming back, somebody going. So it’s not as specific as saying, this guy is going — or may be going — so therefore we need information.”

In some cases, banks have begun using open source information — such as news items — to build cases that end up proving useful to intelligence officials, Cossette said.

In one recent case, a financial institution noticed a customer’s name appeared to match that of someone mentioned in a news story detailing alleged extremist ties. The institution then used Facebook to confirm its suspicions and passed details of the customer’s transaction to FinTRAC.

“So they were successful at meshing their information with the open source information,” Cossette said.

The centre then sent the details to CSIS, which found the information “of interest,” he added.

In essence, banks are saying: “This this appears weird to us, we’re following the news, we see some of these names,” Cossette said.

“They do read the paper. They may even flag some individuals.”

In other cases, CSIS or the RCMP will approach FinTRAC seeking information about a particular group or individual, he said. “Lots of the requests do in fact come from national security agencies. So it works both ways.”

The centre also takes a big-picture look at how money moves to discern trends.

“Do you see a different pattern now than what we saw, let’s say, before the Syrian war? Do you see (an) organization of individuals who used to transfer money to Country X now sending it to Country Y, when we know that Country Y may in fact be transferring the money to the original country of concern?”

Cossette is scheduled to appear before the Senate national security and defence committee Monday to discuss threats facing Canada.

During the Carleton session, he was asked how the agency, which has a $53-million annual budget, determines whether it is providing value for money.

Cossette cited the centre’s growing intelligence output. But he said it was difficult to put a price on sort of information the agency provides.

The special operations advisers, pilots and air crew Ottawa is deploying to Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East—as part of an American-led mission to combat the radical jihadists of Islamic State—are not the only Canadians in the fight. Some have rejected Canada and joined Islamic State. Others, Kurdish Canadians, are members of the peshmerga, the military force of Iraqi Kurdistan and Canada’s partners on the ground in northern Iraq. For at least one, the conflict against Islamic State is a struggle to protect both his homelands.

Anwar Zurar was a senior peshmerga commander during a war between Iraqi Kurds and the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein in the 1970s. “I was a leader from here to Dukan. All this was under my hand in 1974,” he says, referring to some 60 km of terrain north of the city of Sulaymaniyah. But the Kurdish rebels, led by Mustafa Barzani, father of the current president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, were defeated and ﬂed to Iran. Zurar came to Canada as a refugee in 1976, settling in Hamilton and working in real estate. He couldn’t come back to Iraq until after the 1991 Gulf War, when a no-fly zone allowed Iraqi Kurds to carve out an autonomous region of their own in northern Iraq. By then, several members of his family had been killed.

Zurar returned to Iraq most recently two months ago, in the midst of Islamic State’s ongoing onslaught. Now, owing to his historic role in the Kurdish resistance, and because he is therefore a target for Kurdistan’s enemies today, Zurar is given a driver and armed bodyguards whenever he is back in Iraqi Kurdistan. At 66, Zurar is a large-bodied man with a thin moustache and tufts of black chest hair spilling out of his olive green shirt that, along with a sash and baggy pants, is part of a Kurdish guerilla’s unofficial uniform. He walks with a slight limp and laughs easily.

“We are mostly retired,” he says, speaking of the role he and his old comrades play in the Kurds’ current confrontation with Islamic State. But he says he has visited with fighting units since returning to Iraq. “Because I am more experienced, if they need me, I go. I don’t have real duties, but everybody knows me from back time. Sometimes they want to get advice from me.”

Zurar says he tells young peshmerga that they face an adversary in Islamic State more dedicated and potentially dangerous than was Saddam Hussein’s regime. Iraqi soldiers in the 1970s were reluctant to attack. “They loved themselves,” says Zurar, and wanted to live. Islamic State fighters are different. “These guys, they kill themselves. They come for you and they never stop,” he says. “You can’t let them near you.”

Zurar says there are other Kurdish Canadians in the peshmerga. As for Canadians who have joined Islamic State, he is contemptuous. “Oh, I hate them,” he says. “They should kill them. They shouldn’t even be Canadian.”

Zurar says Canada has given him the “best life.” “As much as I do for my Kurds, I do two times for Canada, because of the way that Canada helped me and did things for me. I was wounded three times here, but here they didn’t do nothing for me. Over there they give me a retirement. I worked there for years. I made good money. That’s why I love Canada. I am a real Canadian. I lived more of my life in Canada than Iraq.”

The Kurds still lack the heavy weapons they need to defeat Islamic State, says Zurar. He’s especially upset by the plight of Syrian Kurds in the besieged city of Kobani, which has been holding out against a sustained Islamic State offensive for weeks. America is bombing Islamic State positions around the city, which is located on the border with Turkey. But this intervention has not turned back the attack. Zurar says the Kurds in the city should have been properly armed long ago, and other Kurds allowed to join them. “My leg is no good. Otherwise, believe me, I would go to Kobani for fighting,” he says.

Zurar is encouraged by Canada’s deployment of special forces advisers to Iraqi Kurdistan, and by its decision to launch airstrikes against Islamic State. “We are looking forward to Canadian people around here. If I see them somewhere, I would like to be with them. I would like to help them,” he says.

He is not, however, uniformly uncritical of his adopted Canadian home. As the sun sets, and before returning to town for a supper of kebabs in a casual and crowded diner, he takes me into the mountains above Sulaymaniyah where he fought a generation ago. There are families picnicking on the side of the road. Some people are sipping beer.

“You can’t drink outside like that in Canada,” he says, and laughs. “More freedom here.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/our-man-in-iraq/feed/1Pentagon settling in for long war against Islamic Statehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/pentagon-settling-in-for-long-war-against-islamic-state/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/pentagon-settling-in-for-long-war-against-islamic-state/#commentsFri, 17 Oct 2014 20:26:15 +0000The Associated Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=625499'The campaign to destroy ISIL will take time, and there will be occasional setbacks along the way,' says U.S. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin

WASHINGTON – Ten weeks into its war against Islamic State extremists, the Pentagon is settling in for the long haul, short on big early successes but still banking on enlisting Syrians and Iraqis to fight the ground war so that U.S. troops won’t have to.

The U.S. general overseeing the campaign on Friday predicted that the jihadists will be “much degraded” by airstrikes a year from now, in part because he is focusing attacks on those resources that enable IS to sustain itself and resupply its fighters.

On Friday, for example, the U.S. military said one of its six airstrikes overnight in Syria hit several IS petroleum storage tanks and a pumping station – sites that are central to the militants’ ability to resupply their forces and generate revenue. Likewise, it said two coalition airstrikes in Iraq damaged or destroyed IS military targets near the contested town of Beiji, home of Iraq’s largest oil refinery.

In his first public overview of the campaign he leads from the Florida headquarters of U.S. Central Command, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin cautioned against expecting quick progress. He said he cannot predict how long it will take to right a wobbly Iraqi army and build a viable opposition ground force in Syria.

“The campaign to destroy ISIL will take time, and there will be occasional setbacks along the way,” Austin told a Pentagon news conference, “particularly in these early stages of the campaign as we coach and mentor a force (in Iraq) that is actively working to regenerate capability after years of neglect and poor leadership.”

While hammering the jihadists daily from the air, the U.S. military is talking of a years-long effort – one that will require more than aerial bombardment, will show results only gradually and may eventually call for a more aggressive use of U.S. military advisers in Iraq.

“This isn’t going to get solved through 18 airstrikes around a particular town in a particular place in Syria. It’s going to take a long time,” the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said Thursday, referring to a recent concentration of American airstrikes on the Syrian city of Kobani, near the Turkish border.

That is one reason why the Pentagon is preparing to set up a more formally organized command structure, known in military parlance as a joint task force, to lead and co-ordinate the campaign from a forward headquarters, perhaps in Kuwait. On Wednesday it formally named the campaign “Operation Inherent Resolve.”

As of Thursday the U.S. had launched nearly 300 airstrikes in Iraq and nearly 200 in Syria, and allies had tallied fewer than 100, according to Central Command. Those figures don’t capture the full scope of the effort because many airstrikes launch multiple bombs on multiple targets. Central Command said that as of Wednesday, U.S. and partner-nation air forces had dropped nearly 1,400 munitions.

Officials say the strikes have squeezed IS and slowed its battlefield momentum. More specifically, they claim they have destroyed an array of Islamic State military targets: command posts, sniper positions, artillery guns, armed trucks, tanks, mortar positions, buildings, mobile oil refineries and more. The Pentagon has shied from providing a body count, but Kirby said several hundred IS fighters have been killed in Kobani alone in recent days.

Yet the militants are making gains in some parts of Iraq, particular in Sunni-dominated Anbar province, even as they stall or retrench in other areas. At times they have appeared within reach of taking control of Syria’s Kobani. Baghdad is not believed to be in imminent danger of falling but it is “certainly in their sights,” Kirby said.

OTTAWA – Canada’s bombing campaign against Islamist insurgents could eventually lead to an Afghan-style mission to train the Iraqi army, but it’s an open question whether the Harper government will commit to such a venture.

The country’s top military commander, Gen. Tom Lawson, says bolstering Iraqi forces is the likely next phase of the U.S.-led coalition’s effort and was discussed among military brass in Washington this week.

Published reports in the U.S. that say Washington has asked NATO to organize a mission to train Iraqi soldiers, many of whom received American instruction up to 2009.

Canada recently ended a three-year deployment where it was the second- biggest contributor to the alliance’s Kabul-based mission to train Afghan forces.

Lawson was clear on Friday that the Canadian combat mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is slated to last only six months and is limited to an air campaign.

He says it hasn’t been determined what countries would take part in a subsequent training mission.

The Islamic State has been violently targeting non-Sunni Muslim Iraqis for many months.

This week, the group tried to justify sexually enslaving and selling Yezidi women and girls with their interpretation of Islam in the latest edition of their propaganda magazine. And many Iraqi Christians fear they will soon have to leave Iraq for good.

The video below was shot at the St. Joseph Church in Erbil, where some 275 families are sheltering on the grounds of the church, and in an unfinished building across the road. Most are from the city of Karakosh and nearby villages, a longstanding Christian area southeast of Mosul:

The next video was shot in the far northwest of Iraqi Kurdistan on a bluff overlooking Syria. The families here, about 14, are Yezidis. Most were besieged by Islamic State on Mount Sinjar earlier this year. Stranded and surrounded with little food or water, they escaped into Syria before returning to a safer area of Iraqi Kurdistan. Most left behind were murdered or enslaved. Thousands are living in a nearby IDP camp. The families here, however, are sheltering in an old and abandoned stone building. They are largely on their own here, but have a little more space than those in the official camps:

BAGHDAD – On the western edge of Iraq’s capital, Islamic State group militants battle government forces and exchange mortar fire, only adding to the sense of siege in Baghdad despite airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition.

Yet military experts say the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group, who now control a large territory along the border that Iraq and Syria share, won’t be able to fight through both government forces and Shiite militias now massed around the capital.

It does, however, put them in a position to wreak havoc in Iraq’s biggest city, with its suicide attacks and other assaults further eroding confidence in Iraq’s nascent federal government and its troops, whose soldiers already fled the Islamic State group’s initial lightning advance in June.

“It’s not plausible at this point to envision ISIL taking control of Baghdad, but they can make Baghdad so miserable that it would threaten the legitimacy of the central government,” said Richard Brennan, an Iraq expert with RAND Corporation and former Department of Defence policymaker, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.

The siege fears in Baghdad stem from recent gains made by the Islamic State group in the so-called Baghdad Belt – the final stretch between Anbar province, where the group gained ground in Janaury, and Baghdad. The group has had a presence in the Baghdad Belt since spring, Iraqi officials say, but recent advances have sparked new worries.

Last week, Islamic State group fighters seized the towns of Hit and neighbouring Kubaisa, sending Iraqi soldiers fleeing and leaving a nearby military base with its stockpile of weapons at risk of capture. The U.S.-led coalition recently launched two airstrikes northwest of Hit, U.S. Central Command said Saturday.

Perhaps most worrying, Islamic State group fighters now battle Iraqi forces in Abu Ghraib, the town home to the infamous prison of the same name that’s only 18 miles (29 kilometres) from the Green Zone, the fortified international zone protecting Baghdad-based embassies and government office.

A senior military official in Anbar told The Associated Press on Saturday that government helicopters fire on targets daily in Abu Ghraib, though the town remains in the hands of security forces.

To the south of Baghdad, security forces fight to hold onto the town of Jurf al-Sukr, and to the north, one Sunni tribe has held onto the town of Duluiyah despite an Islamic State group’s onslaught. However, Islamic State group fighters have taken over a number of towns in Diyala province, east of Baghdad.

Yet authorities believe an assault to take Baghdad remains unlikely. An Iraqi military and intelligence official each told the AP that as many as 60,000 government security personnel, including soldiers and police officers, are currently in position outside the city along the Baghdad Belt. A plot by the Islamic State group to enter Baghdad in September through the Shiite al-Kazimiyah neighbourhood was foiled, the officials added.

Both Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Since that initial September assault, Baghdad largely has been spared and remained relatively calm, considering the intense sectarian bloodshed residents saw in 2006 and 2007 after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. Still, many remain worried.

“It’s scary,” said Maha Ismail, who recently visited one of Baghdad’s new shopping malls. “But we have seen a lot worse than this so we are gathering despite all the warnings.”

A U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke to the AP said Baghdad would remain a target for Islamic State group attacks, though seizing it outright would be nearly impossible.

“Attacking Baghdad is probably still in (its) playbook but its leaders must know they would face overwhelming odds in striking the city,” the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to journalists.

Islamic State group says it has a foothold inside Baghdad, having claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the city, particularly in the Sadr City neighbourhood – a Shiite stronghold. In August, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque in New Baghdad, and another in the Shiite-majority district of Utaifiya in Baghdad, which together killed 26 people.

Some attacks go unclaimed, raising fears that other groups may look to capitalize on the tensions provoked by the Islamic State group. On Saturday, a series of unclaimed car bomb attacks in Iraq’s capital killed 30 people in Shiite areas, authorities said.

Yet analysts, like Brennan from the RAND Corporation, say capturing Baghdad remains beyond the Islamic State group’s ability. At its worst, the group might “start pressing into the western areas of Baghdad, going into the Sunni areas of Baghdad and pressing up against the Tigris (River) – if not controlling it, then at least testing the control of the central government,” he said.

Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said Saturday that the Iraqi military “continues to maintain firm control of the city and there is no imminent threat of an effective” offensive by the Islamic State group.

“While there are pockets of ISIL in the vicinity of Baghdad, (Iraqi security forces) continue to conduct operations to engage these elements and push back with the support of U.S. airstrikes when necessary,” Ryder said, using the alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.

Beyond the U.S.-co-ordinated airstrikes and the massing of Iraqi troops, the country’s religious and ethnic lines likely will staunch any advance by the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group. From Baghdad further south, Iraq’s population is overwhelmingly Shiite and the lands there are home to some of its most important shrines.

Already, Shiite militias back up government forces in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq – their flags and symbols provocatively displayed across the capital. Such militias, like Iran-supported Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, “are battle tested,” said David L. Phillips, the director of the Peace-building and Rights Program at Columbia University. Challenging them likely would become a bloody slog for the Islamic State group, he said.

“The militias are not bound by rules of war,” he added. “They and (the Islamic State group) share one thing in common: Neither is bound by the Geneva Conventions.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/islamic-state-fighters-besiege-towns-around-iraqi-capital/feed/0Just how seriously is Canada’s voice taken now?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/just-how-seriously-is-canadas-voice-taken-now/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/just-how-seriously-is-canadas-voice-taken-now/#commentsFri, 10 Oct 2014 03:45:29 +0000John Geddeshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=620757Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a much weaker record on foreign policy than he would have Canadians believe

It was a moment made-to-order for Stephen Harper’s dark way of talking about the world. Going back to the 2011 election, the Prime Minister has often portrayed Canada as an island of safety in a global sea of dangers. Sometimes that imagery comes off as alarmist, but the rhetoric works when the topic at hand is the rise of Islamic State extremism in Syria and Iraq. So, when Harper rose in the House of Commons last week to make his case for joining U.S. President Barack Obama’s air campaign against the terrorists, he sounded very much himself in framing the disturbing new threat. He also said that deploying CF-18 fighter jets was necessary to maintain Canada’s international standing. “If Canada wants to keep its voice in the world—and we should, since so many of our challenges are global—being a free rider means you are not taken seriously,” Harper said.

Perhaps inadvertently, though, Harper suggested a question: Just how seriously is Canada’s voice taken now? Conservatives’ claims about having restored Canada’s clout on the world stage have always rested heavily on their reinvestment in the military. But Harper’s early defence-spending hikes turned to cuts after the 2009 recession, while he staged a tactical retreat from his high-profile pledge to buy F-35 jets to replace the aging CF-18s—eroding his image as an unwavering builder of the Canadian Forces’ might. After more than eight years of his rule, does Canada’s military reputation really rank noticeably higher? As Obama assembled his coalition to bomb Islamic State (also know as ISIS), the U.S. signed up a raft of other allies days, or even weeks, before Canada, including bigger military powers such as France and Britain, but also the likes of Australia, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.

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Of course, standing on defence isn’t the only measure of Harper’s strength or weakness in the world. Back before his 2006 election win, he set Canada-U.S. relations as the litmus test. As Opposition leader in 2002, Harper delivered a tough attack in the House on then-prime minister Jean Chrétien’s “consistent and complete inability” to bolster Canadian economic interests in the U.S. As PM, however, Harper hasn’t fared better. American border restrictions remain a serious Canadian government frustration. The low point came in early 2012, when Obama told Harper there would be no quick approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to siphon Alberta crude to U.S. refineries. A wounded Harper sent out Joe Oliver, then his natural resources minister, to tell reporters the “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market.”

For those who remember Harper’s opposition days, that message delivered by Oliver, now Harper’s finance minister, had an ironic ring to it. Back in his 2002 assault on Liberal foreign policy, Harper had derided Chrétien’s attempts at diversifying Canada’s trade beyond the U.S. as an unrealistic echo of the so-called “third option” pursued by Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s, “which did not work then and is not working now.” Harper learned the hard way that there was something to the old Liberal position that Washington’s intransigence leaves Canada no choice but to cultivate trade options overseas. Still, Conservative fans of his no-nonsense style can at least take solace in the way Harper has ditched the old soft-power Liberal brand of multilateralism—the ethos behind former preoccupations such as creating the International Criminal Court, or a treaty to ban land mines—for much sterner stuff.

Or has he? In the days leading up to a key Harper speech at the United Nations late last month, advance stories were full of confident predictions about which world issues he would tackle. After snubbing the General Assembly for three years—ever since his government’s embarrassing failure to win a UN vote for a temporary seat on its Security Council in 2010—the PM had to be returning to blast Russia for incursions into Ukraine and to denounce Islamic State outrages in Iraq. Or so it was assumed. As it turned out, he spoke almost entirely about an aid initiative to improve the health of mothers and newborns. Alluding only vaguely to border tensions in Eastern Europe and bloodshed in the Middle East, he urged UN members to look past violent conflicts to “the long-term opportunities and efforts that can truly transform our world.”

It was a classically Canadian internationalist plea, issued in the New York temple to multilateralism held sacred by Harper’s most bitter critics. Was this really the same Harper who had so often scoffed at Canada’s historic approach to the UN as a matter of “going along to get along”? Even more scornfully, he once summed up his foreign-policy philosophy this way: “It is no longer to please every dictator with a vote at the United Nations.” But, with the maternal and child health initiative, a growing preoccupation of Harper’s for several years now, he is clearly trying to put his stamp on what looks like the sort of UN-focused project his Conservatives used to mock Liberals for championing.

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper addresses the 69th Session of the UN General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on September 25, 2014. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

It would be an absurd stretch to suggest that the Harper who championed the Forces, was suspicious of the UN, and assigned enormous importance to Canada-U.S. economic relations, has disappeared. But he has found those pillars too unsteady to bear the full weight of his foreign policy. It’s been a steep learning curve. Before he won power in 2006, he had barely travelled outside Canada and had focused almost exclusively on domestic issues, mostly economic and constitutional. “Since coming to office,” he told Maclean’s in a 2011 interview, “the thing that’s probably struck me the most in terms of my previous expectations—I don’t even know what my expectations were—is not just how important foreign affairs/foreign relations is, but, in fact, that it’s become almost everything.”

Harper inherited the most challenging overseas file in a generation: Afghanistan. Five weeks after being sworn in as Prime Minister on Feb. 6, 2006, he was on a Kandahar airfield telling the assembled troops, “You can’t lead from the bleachers; I want Canada to be a leader.” His Conservatives backed that up by boosting annual defence spending from about $15 billion the year before they took power to closer to $20 billion. Impressive as that top-line figure is, though, it hardly tells the whole story.

David Perry, a senior analyst at the Conference of Defence Associations Institute in Ottawa, offers perhaps the most fine-grained analysis of Canada’s military budget available, outside of classified documents. Perry says defence spending, adjusted for inflation, is actually lower today than it was in 2007. He points to four consecutive years of shrinking outlays on new military hardware, a trend he now calls “seemingly irreversible.”

Perry even argues that there never was any sharp divide on defence between Liberal and Conservative times. The real watershed came in 2005, he contends, when the Liberals, flush with surpluses after slaying the deficit, reinvested heavily in the Department of National Defence. Taking over the following year, Harper built on that new spending policy, to be sure, but only until the 2009 recession. Since then, according to Perry’s analysis, spending restraint has again been the order of the day, with defence absorbing fully a quarter of all federal spending cuts in last spring’s budget.

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Translating budget numbers into a real understanding of military readiness is notoriously difficult. Senior officers are reticent to speak out. Back in 2012, however, Lt.-Gen. Peter Devlin, then commander of the army, surprised a Senate committee by disclosing that his land force’s operating budget had been slashed by 22 per cent. Devlin retired last year to become president of Fanshawe College in London, Ont. In a recent interview, he said cuts shrunk battalions, which are supposed to be made up of about 800 troops, to 500, and those diminished infantry units are getting “dramatically less” training in the field. “That’s what affects operational readiness,” Devlin said.

If Harper wants to keep making overseas commitments, Perry adds, spending will have to be increased again. He pointed to stepped-up NATO activity in Europe, reacting to Russia’s menacing posture along Ukraine’s border, and the six-month Iraq deployment, which could be prolonged. Successive years of belt-tightening have reduced the Forces’ flexibility to take on such new missions. “Relative to three years ago,” Perry says, “there’s much less ability to absorb incremental costs having to do with operational activity.”

More obvious than operational strains are problems in wrapping up major procurements. The lifespans of the CF-18s—on average nearly three decades old—are being extended at great cost, as a result of long-running indecision over their replacement. After announcing their intention to acquire 65 of the still-in-development F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in 2010, the Conservatives were pummelled for hiding the true cost, likely $45 billion, and for failing to make the case for the cutting-edge F-35s over jets already in production. As well, two Aurora surveillance planes that will be accompanying the CF-18s to Iraq are also about 30 years old, part of a fleet slated for replacement by the Tories early on, until that plan was abandoned as too costly. One can only imagine the ridicule Conservatives, in their opposition days, would have heaped on the Liberals for such handling of major Air Force procurements.

So the military rebirth touted by Tories as Canada’s new calling card abroad is under strain. The Ottawa-Washington relationship—flagged by Harper, before he got the job, as any PM’s top foreign-policy priority—is stressed. Harper’s rapport with other world leaders hardly makes up for these gaps. He’s chummiest with like-minded conservatives—such as Australia’s Tony Abbott and, more controversial, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu—from countries that don’t rank as top trading partners or first-tier powers. That leaves pursuing trade deals, such as those hammered out with South Korea and the European Union, as the acknowledged strongest element of Harper’s international efforts. “This government has, from the very beginning, emphasized the substance of a trade agenda,” says Roland Paris, director of the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies, otherwise a forceful Harper critic.

But trade alone isn’t typically enough to cement a leader’s reputation as an accomplished global player. If Harper’s recent UN speech was any indication, he’s staking a different sort of claim. Spotlighting his leadership on the UN Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, which he co-chairs with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, takes Harper far outside the bounds of familiar Conservative emphasis on “interests” (typically trade and investment) or “convictions” (notably, backing embattled countries such as Israel and Ukraine). It takes him to the UN.

It’s the same UN that runs the climate-change negotiations where Harper’s delegations—defending Canada’s oil sector—are widely regarded as obstructionists. It’s the UN that John Baird, Harper’s foreign minister, once accused of indulging a “preoccupation with procedure and process” so stultifying, he swore off any future Canadian involvement in “how the UN arranges its affairs.” And it’s the UN where criticisms of Israel frequently arise, which the Harper government unfailing decries—as it did last summer when then-UN high commissioner for human rights, Navanethem Pillay, called for a ceasefire after Israel’s bombing of Gaza caused many civilian casualties, prompting Baird to scold Pillay for being neither “helpful nor reflective of the reality of this crisis.”

What a strange turn it will be if Harper’s signature foreign-policy achievement ends up being a UN-based project. Perhaps the maternal and child health initiative represents a sort of reconciliation, on his own terms, with the multilateralism long associated with the loathed Liberals. And, on other fronts, fresh chances for him to buff up his international credentials may be emerging. This fall’s economic update is expected to herald a return to balanced federal books, perhaps allowing Defence an injection of new money, or, at least, relief from further restraint. In responding to the Islamic State crisis, Harper has been unstintingly outspoken in crediting Obama’s leadership, along with sending the CF-18s, which can’t hurt bilateral relations.

Related:

Canadian soldiers from 4th platoon, bulldog company 1st Battalion, 22nd royal regiment walk during a patrol in the village of Sarah in Panjwai district of Kandahar province southern Afghanistan, in 2011. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Not surprisingly, Harper’s sharpest critics doubt his capacity to convert opportunities into a new sophistication. Roland Paris detects no sign of Harper “paying attention to the context of foreign affairs.” Even some of the Prime Minister’s avowed admirers see plenty of room for improvement. Derek Burney, a top architect of Brian Mulroney’s Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, now a senior adviser at the international law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, often leaps to Harper’s defence. Yet he regards this PM’s top priorities, such as his rock-ribbed support for Israel, as too often detached from any strategic framing of Canadian interests. “What we’ve had is rather spasmodic foreign policy based on conviction or principle—very stout,” Burney says. “I like the conviction, but I’d like to see more strategy on places like China.”

Among foreign-policy experts, geopolitical strategy is much in the air again. Once overshadowed by investment and trade, during the optimistic end-of-history era after the collapse of the Soviet Union, deep thinking about intractable problems has returned, especially in the wake of troubling developments in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and, lately, Hong Kong. All serve as reminders that convictions are no substitute, in an often bewildering world, for elite expertise. To obtain that rarefied commodity, argues Colin Robertson, a veteran former diplomat, whose postings included Washington and the UN, “you need hard-core, classic diplomatic skills.” After eight years of skeptical Conservative oversight, however, he doubts a demoralized foreign service is working seamlessly with Harper and his senior political aides. “If you beat a dog all the time, then the dog isn’t going to do what you like,” says Robertson, now vice-president of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

But Burney counters that Harper’s detractors are delusional if they imagine Canadian foreign policy should return to some bygone Liberal brand of diplomat-driven multilateralism. “Let’s not luxuriate in the myth of how wonderful it used to be,” he says. In fact, there was a good, strong whiff of that sort of nostalgia in the air on Parliament Hill during the debate over the Iraq air-strikes deployment. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau played to the notion of a special Canadian vocation for peaceful contributions such as medical aid or refugee airlifts. “We can be resourceful, and there are significant, substantial, non-combat roles that Canada can play,” Trudeau said, “and some we can play better than many, or perhaps any, of our allies.” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said, “Canada’s first contribution should be to use every diplomatic, humanitarian and financial resource at our disposal.”

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The stark contrast exposed by the partisan clash over the air strikes might play to Harper’s advantage. Last month, the Ottawa polling firm Abacus Data asked Canadians about sending fighter jets against Islamic State in Iraq, and 57 per cent supported the plan, against just 34 per cent who opposed it, with 14 per cent who were not sure. That suggests Harper can expect far stronger approval of this decision than he enjoys overall on foreign policy; the same Abacus poll said 28 per cent favour his foreign-policy approach over Trudeau’s, not much better than the 23 per cent who think they’d prefer Trudeau’s if he became prime minister, over Harper’s. (Twenty-six per cent had no preference.) Harper’s record on repositioning Canada in the world is uneven. But the urgent question of this moment isn’t about how well he works with the White House on economic matters, or if he has equipped and funded the military quite so generously as he lets on, or even if his approach to UN-based multilateralism is consistent. The immediate concern is about Canada’s contribution to a global coalition to stop Islamic State terrorism from spreading. Policy debate is abstract. Military action is tangible.

The test, at least in the coming weeks, will likely have less to do with the Prime Minister’s foreign-policy acumen than with the accuracy of CF-18 strikes somewhere in Iraq, or perhaps Syria. Sorting out how this changes the wider view of foreign affairs under Harper will have to wait until sometime after the smoke clears.

The Syrian civil war has triggered an almost unfathomable exodus of people from their homes.

Nine million Syrians—more than a third of the country’s population, and a number roughly equivalent to the populations of Canada’s eight largest cities put together—are displaced. Some remain in Syria. More than three million have fled it altogether, including more than 200,000 now living in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Residents of the Darakshakran camp near Erbil are mostly Syrian Kurds from the north and east of the country. The radical jihadist group calling itself Islamic State is currently rampaging through Syrian Kurdistan, notably besieging the city of Kobane on the border with Turkey.

But many residents of Darakshakran left their homes well before Islamic State’s current onslaught, fleeing instead the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its response to an uprising that began with non-violent street demonstrations in 2011. Since then, more than 200,000 Syrians have died as Assad’s attempts to crush protests against him escalated into all-out war.

Some Syrians in Darakshakran believe Assad allows Islamic State to flourish in order to discredit the revolution against him. They want to go home, but say this won’t be possible until both Assad’s regime and Islamic State are defeated.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/video-an-exodus-of-refugees-waits-out-assad-and-islamic-state/feed/4Canada’s jets, planes to be based in Kuwait for Iraq missionhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canadas-jets-planes-to-be-based-in-kuwait-for-iraq-mission/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canadas-jets-planes-to-be-based-in-kuwait-for-iraq-mission/#commentsThu, 09 Oct 2014 19:25:29 +0000The Canadian Presshttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=621699Base will host CF-18 jet fighters, two CP-140 Auroras and a C-150 Polaris

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canadas-jets-planes-to-be-based-in-kuwait-for-iraq-mission/feed/0Will the allied bombing do much good?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/will-the-allied-bombing-do-much-good/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/will-the-allied-bombing-do-much-good/#commentsThu, 09 Oct 2014 16:13:58 +0000Barbara Amielhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=620695Barbara Amiel looks at how the West should deal with the threat of the Islamic State

I find the wing of hair swept coyly across the forehead of Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie (ret’d) irritating for some reason, and it’s in a close race with the irritation evoked by what he says. Kudos to CBC’s Evan Solomon, whose patient questioning of Leslie, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s defence adviser, elicited the earnest, wide-eyed—I kid you not—gem from Leslie that the single largest threat to Canada was not Islamic State but its victims. This was his explanation for why Trudeau opposed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s plan to send six fighters on a combat mission against ISIS. Aren’t “the people beheading . . . the bigger threat?” asked an incredulous Solomon. A “short-term” threat, replied a po-faced Leslie explaining that the biggest concern was the huddled refugees in misery on the Turkish border. “Fertile breeding ground,” said Leslie, “for creating the next wave of terrorists.”

Leslie had two talking points: First, the Prime Minister had a duty to establish “a burden of proof” that the six combat aircraft Canada was contributing to the fight was the right use of Canada’s limited resources. Second, Leslie explained he couldn’t really answer any questions about Trudeau’s decision because he was “not a member of caucus” or, alternatively, “others [are] far better qualified to go into the politics of the decision.”

The point is not whether you agree with Harper’s strategy but rather the grubby politics of the Liberals. Trudeau appears to have decided that the way to compete with NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair for Quebec seats is to echo French Quebec’s traditional isolationism. He can’t find any genuine reason to justify opposing Canada’s air strikes, given that he has already supported those by the U.S. Leslie tried echoing Trudeau’s bluster about deploying Canada’s “scarce resources” for humanitarian uses. Just how using six fighter planes takes away from the humanitarian aid Harper has already promised is not clear, given that the CF-18 is a combat jet unlikely to be of much use in humanitarian work—unless the problem is that Canada only has six pilots.

For myself, I’m not sure that the allied bombing will do much good. The black flag of ISIS went up in sight of the Turkish border this week. In asymmetrical warfare, tackling guerrilla insurgents from 10,000 feet isn’t a long-term solution, although it might contain them for a few months. There is an argument to be made for just letting the Arabs kill one another, tribe against tribe, Sunni against Shia, until, like the Europeans before them—who behaved every bit as badly over several hundred years—they finally get tired of the suffering and choose to make an accommodation with one another.

Europeans began to wind down their misery with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which put nation as the basis of organization regardless of religious denomination. But between the end of the 15th century up until the War of American Independence, excluding colonial, imperial and civil wars, there were close to 40 great power wars. The killings and atrocities were, to use Leslie’s felicitous phrase, “fertile breeding ground” for Europe getting damn sick of the whole nightmare and talking peace.

Perhaps the West should stay out of the battle against ISIS unless a specific Western interest is at stake: an attack on an ally such as Jordan or Israel, or the use and spread of biological (Ebola is being bruited on jihadist social media) and nuclear weapons. The Muslim world has to solve this problem. The refugees in whose name Trudeau is invoking modified isolationism are huddled on the border of Turkey. Turkey, a Muslim country, has a powerful, highly trained army with sophisticated weapons. If it used them to go in and smash ISIS instead of using them to keep refugees out, Turkey could take over Syria—which, after all, was governed by the Turks for five centuries in the Ottoman Empire and only came into existence with the Sykes-Picot plan. Everyone would breathe a sigh of relief and goodbye, Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State.

You could also argue that it’s Western interference causing the latest beheadings: Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammed al-Adnani was clear that the first need was to establish the caliphate by destroying rival infidel organizations (meaning Arab nations, as well as rival jihadists). That would require, he told his followers, postponing actions against the West. The beheadings were a response to Western bomb attacks. Until then, the hostages were fed and watered for future bargaining. (Turkey reportedly got back 49 hostages in return for releasing 148 jihadists, including two British.) Of course, if allowed to go unchecked, Islamic State will eventually be a great threat to the West and, along the way, the whole region could blow up if WMDs are used.

The horror of civilians being starved, raped, executed and driven from their homes is something we want to prevent—when it’s forced on our attention. Eleven years of unspeakable brutality against Darfur’s population, and still the atrocities continue. I don’t mean to be cavalier about the graphic images of Western aid workers being executed, but a few online beheadings do work wonders. If only the French Terror in 1793 or the more than 70 million killed in the 20th century by totalitarian Communism could have hit the Internet. The Indochina wars might have had a different outcome if the Khmer Rouge’s mutilations had been tweeted. And millions of Jews saved if Auschwitz had gone on Instagram.

Beheadings have been going on in the Arab world together with stonings, lashings and amputations as a matter of routine. I suppose everyone was too busy condemning Israel for trying to protect itself from this culture to take much notice of it. Which reminds me of Leslie’s other notable contribution to these discussions, his Aug. 19 remarks that Israel was “firing indiscriminately onto Palestinian women and children.” That, too, should go over well in French Quebec. You’ve got yourself a real winner, Mr. Trudeau.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/will-the-allied-bombing-do-much-good/feed/8War is war is war. Still . . .http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/war-is-war-is-war-still/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/war-is-war-is-war-still/#commentsThu, 09 Oct 2014 15:38:47 +0000Colby Coshhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=620705Colby Cosh on how to reduce the glamorous appeal of guerrilla warfare

The debate over Canadian participation in strikes against Islamic State highlights how difficult it has become to talk about warfare in the 21st century. The Conservative government’s commitment to the U.S.-led alliance against Islamic State is modest: six CF-18 fighters, a few refuelling and surveillance planes, and 69 army advisers on the ground in non-combat roles. The Prime Minister explicitly ruled out participation in ground combat.

In response, the leaders of the opposition parties warned of a “quagmire.” Thomas Mulcair complained that a “Western-led invasion” of Iraq and Syria was imminent; Justin Trudeau said that “the Prime Minister and the government have given us no reason to believe that once in combat they will be able to limit our role.” Apparently there is some discernible chance that those CF-18s will all be brought down by Islamic State, the cunning devils, and that they will end up being like the fly swallowed by the little old lady in the nursery rhyme.

It seems to me the PM would have an easier time pitching the fight against Islamic State if he could call it what it really is: a police action. Politicians abused that term as a legalistic euphemism in the previous century, and now it cannot credibly be used to describe a military intervention. War is war is war. And war really does have a tendency to behave that way—to turn nations into that little old lady who unexpectedly finds herself having to scarf down an entire horse.

But a little policing by the world hegemon and its allies is recognizably just what is needed here. Islamic State calls itself a “state,” but it is really a gang attempting to become a state, a gang that has developed vast, nihilist ambitions.

Thomas Mulcair babbled in the House of Commons about how Islamic State is really just the same buncha jerks that Americans and their Iraqi client government have been jostling with for a decade. He is right, in the narrow sense that some of the people are the same. But he appears not to have noticed that these particular jerks have captured an astonishing amount of advanced military hardware, obtained a monopoly of force within thousands of square miles of territory, and recruited dozens of Canadians and hundreds of Westerners, some of them not even Muslim.

They have accomplished most of this by means of sheer bravado and imagemaking, and it is easy to imagine the regret this moment might inspire later, if it is missed. The Canadian opposition’s argument is that if we cannot in some sense subject Islamic State to total defeat or annihilation, we should not be putting lives at risk at all—even if the lives are few and the risk quite small. There is an unfortunate pro-war/anti-war binariness to all this, particularly since Canada is not proposing to go to war against another state, but is assisting allies in suppressing glorified banditry. Activity like this has become hard for us to comprehend, even though it is the stuff of our own imperialist history.

It would be nice if we could reduce every Islamic State member to smithereens. If you have a plan for that, the Joint Chiefs are surely all ears. But slowing down Islamic State’s initial impetus is worthwhile. Denying it the unrestricted freedom of movement in the open is worthwhile. Demonstrating to Islamic State’s recruiting base that it is not invincible, that it does not necessarily have the mandate of heaven, is worthwhile. Just getting some gun-camera footage of a few Islamic State teenyboppers getting sawn in half by a Gatling gun would, frankly, help serve this end.

The NDP’s Paul Dewar assures us that Kurdish peshmergas and Yazidi targets of genocide have no interest in any of this, no sir; they would prefer air drops of food and medicine while they are waiting to be butchered, or perhaps afterward. Like the Conservatives, I find myself skeptical.

I suspect, indeed, that a major unstated goal of striking at Islamic State is to deny it some of the abandoned heavy weaponry it took from the frightened Iraqi army. Islamic State can replace dead men easily enough, but it will have a lot more trouble obtaining M-46 field guns and T-55 tanks if some of these can be destroyed in allied air strikes. Once Islamic State is reduced to creating its caliphate with only the usual stuff of Third World warfare—Toyota trucks, AK-47 knockoffs, and cheapo RPGs—a lot of its video-game glamour, and hence its ability to recruit and act internationally, will disappear.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/war-is-war-is-war-still/feed/4Video: On the frontlines in Iraqhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/video-frontlines-iraq/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/video-frontlines-iraq/#commentsThu, 09 Oct 2014 10:31:28 +0000Michael Petrouhttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=621477A video report on the Peshmerga forces facing off against the Islamic State

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/video-frontlines-iraq/feed/1Editorial: In the fight against ISIS, it’s worth getting our hands dirtyhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/editorial-in-the-critical-fight-against-islamic-state-its-worth-getting-our-hands-dirty/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/editorial-in-the-critical-fight-against-islamic-state-its-worth-getting-our-hands-dirty/#commentsThu, 09 Oct 2014 01:47:48 +0000macleans.cahttp://www.macleans.ca/?p=620709In joining the coalition, Canada is properly fulfilling its global obligations to promote peace and security in a difficult part of the world

“No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy,” observed 19th-century Prussian strategist Helmuth von Moltke. Risk, loss and uncertainty are fundamental to every military endeavour. Canada’s six-month mission against Islamic State, as approved by Parliament this week, will be no exception.

In sending six CF-18 fighters, two surveillance aircraft and a refuelling tanker to participate in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, it is possible Canada’s contingent of pilots, advisers and support crew will suffer casualties. There will be an obvious financial cost to be borne as well, although the exact size cannot be known with certainty. Participating in such a direct fashion may also make our country a target in the future for other radical Islamic terrorists.

There are many other important, but equally unanswerable questions, about Canada’s mission to the Middle East. Will Islamic State prove as difficult to dislodge from Syria and Iraq as the Taliban were in Afghanistan? Will it be possible to replace its putative caliphate with stable and coherent governments? How many civilians will die as a result of Islamic State targets being bombed? Is airpower sufficient to eliminate the threat of radical Islam? Will the mission need to be extended six months hence? The proper response to all such queries: We simply don’t know.

But does this lack of certainty mean we should disengage from the battle against radical Islamic terrorism and leave our CF-18s at home? On this score the answer is clear: absolutely not.

In this week’s parliamentary debate on the Harper government’s motion to authorize Canadian airstrikes in Iraq, and possibly Syria, both opposition parties chose to dwell at great length on the many uncertainties of the plan. The six-month mission could turn into a “quagmire,” warned NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. Despite the fact he supports supplying arms to factions fighting Islamic State on the ground, Mulcair fretted about the possibility of civilian casualties caused by coalition airstrikes. “Canada’s first contribution should be to use every diplomatic, humanitarian and financial resource at our disposal,” he concluded. All safe strategies, to be sure. And utterly useless at this point in the Islamic State conflagration.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau demonstrated his own foreign policy naïveté by claiming Canada enjoys a comparative advantage over its allies in airlift capacity and that we should to stick to moving things around for others. “We think there is a role for Canada to be involved in the fight,” he told the House of Commons. But only in a “non-combat” way. Anything else would be too risky and unpleasant.

While readily accepting the loathsomeness of Islamic State, which has engaged in public beheadings, rape, slavery, mass murder and numerous other repugnancies, the opposition leaders argued strongly against a Canadian combat mission. They’d rather someone else got their hands dirty. But shirking isn’t strategy. In joining the coalition that includes familiar allies such as the U.S., Britain, Australia, Denmark and France, as well as Arab states such as Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Canada is properly fulfilling its global obligations to promote peace and security in a difficult part of the world. That said, the strongest claim on risking Canadian lives and resources against Islamic State rests entirely on self-interest.

The main lesson to be gleaned from 9/11 is the broad threat posed by power vacuums in volatile parts of the world. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan after the fall of the Russian-backed government in the 1990s, it offered its terrorist partners a sympathetic home base from which to operate. From this distant location, they were able to deliver destruction direct to North America. A cross-border caliphate in the Middle East presents an even greater danger to world stability. Not only is it located much closer to travel routes and major population centres, but it seeks a violent theological war with its Islamic neighbours in addition to Western nations. The potential flashpoints are far more numerous this time around. Canada’s first interest in this fight is to keep its own citizens safe.

Of course our experience in Afghanistan, not to mention more recently in Libya where Canada participated in the 2011 bombing campaign that ousted strongman Moammar Gadhafi, also emphasizes that more than just airstrikes are required to achieve long-lasting success. With Libya now riven by tribal violence and Afghanistan still painfully underdeveloped, Canada and the rest of the nations participating in the fight against Islamic State must think carefully about what they want to leave behind once the mission is over. Real stability is difficult to achieve. What Iraq or Syria will look like in a year’s time is still uncertain.

The only thing we can know for sure: the world will be better off without Islamic State.

Abstentions are generally hard to assess. Unless an MP is sitting in the House of Commons when a standing vote is conducted or announces that they will be abstaining, it’s not immediately obvious whether an MP has declined to vote for some reason of viewpoint or simply because they had another commitment and their vote was not going to be pivotal. It’s probably fair to say that MPs have abstained from voting for principled reasons without us ever knowing. (The last purposeful abstentions I can remember were on asbestos in 2011. Steven Fletcher abstained on an assisted-suicide bill in 2010.)

All of which makes Irwin Cotler’s principled abstention last night from the Iraq vote—coming as it did with a full explanation—a relatively novel happenstance.

“I have written ad nauseam almost on the responsibility to protect in general and in particular with regards to Syria … I was on record as, not only Canada joining an international coalition, but asking Canada to lead that coalition, to convene a UN security council urgent meeting, et cetera, et cetera. Therefore, I would have generally supported a resolution of that kind,” Cotler told me this afternoon. “So why wouldn’t I support something that supports my position? Well the answer is because this does not support it, but turns R2P on its head. Harper took the astonishing position to say that … with regards to Syria, if we’re going to go into Syria then it’ll be contingent on Assad’s agreement. As I said, this not only turns R2P on its head, it’s asking the criminal who should be in the docket or the accused for permission for us to engage in the very international military operation that he’s asking us to support. To me that not only was the theatre of the absurd on Harper’s part, but in fact it evinced a lack of understanding of the whole initiative that he was speaking about. And then to invoke the UN security council resolution … when in fact there was no UN security council resolution showed, again, a lack of understanding.”

Meanwhile, the NDP’s Charlie Angus is apparently unimpressed with the fact that the Green caucus (population: two) split on the Iraq resolution. (Whenever the NDP fusses over party unity, I’m reminded of Jack Layton’s decision to allow a free vote on the gun registry.) While Elizabeth May voted against, Bruce Hyer voted in favour, a decision he explains here (he did not speak to the resolution in the House).

Stephen Harper’s decision to send Canadian fighter jets into combat over Iraq, and perhaps Syria, has focused unprecedented attention on the Prime Minister’s foreign policy. Harper himself cast the decision to join President Barack Obama’s coalition against Islamic State terrorists in terms of maintaining Canada’s standing on the world stage: “If Canada wants to keep its voice in the world—and we should since so many of our challenges are global—being a free rider means you are not taken seriously.” But how seriously is Canada’s voice taken internationally after Harper’s more than eight years in power?

Debate rages among foreign policy experts. Maclean’s looks at how Harper has positioned Canada in the world—and finds his record, judged by his own priorities, uneven at best. His claim to having restored Canada’s clout rests largely on Conservative commitment to the military, but cuts to the Armed Forces and troubles with major defence procurements undermine that narrative. He came to office touting Canada-US relations as any prime minister’s top task, but has been frustrated by the Washington file. This story probes those problems, but also highlights Harper’s success negotiating trade deals and his unexpected focus on a UN-centred humanitarian project. It’s a close look at Harper’s flawed foreign-affairs record at a moment when unsettling world events may offer him a chance to set a new tone.

Read more in our cover story, available today in our tablet edition, on newsstands tomorrow, and online next week.

OTTAWA — One by one, Conservative MPs in the House of Commons led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper voted late Tuesday to join the war in Iraq, passing a controversial motion that clears the way for Canadian CF-18s to embark on airstrikes in the Middle East.

After two days of debate, the motion to launch a combat mission against the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant passed 157-134.

Some 155 Conservatives voted in favour of the motion, with the help of Independent MP Brent Rathgeber and Green MP Bruce Hyer, while the NDP and the Liberals were opposed. Liberal MP Irwin Cotler abstained from the vote.

Combat missions do not ordinarily require the approval of the House of Commons, but Harper himself promised any combat mission, including airstrikes, would be subject to a debate and a vote.

Canada had initially stayed out of the U.S.-led campaign against the now-notorious al-Qaida splinter group, which is currently in control of large swaths of territory in both Syria and Iraq.

A sustained bombing effort targeting ISIL positions began in August. The following month, Canada quietly announced it would provide up to 69 special forces “advisers” for 30 days to train Iraqi and Kurdish fighters currently battling the group. At last word, 26 of those troops were on the ground in Iraq.

Those soldiers will now be part of a sustained six-month campaign that includes as many as six CF-18 fighter-bombers, two CP-140 surveillance planes, one refuelling aircraft and 600 personnel, but which expressly excludes the possibility of additional ground forces.

Hear MPs discuss the vote in this report from CityNews and Rogers Radio parliamentary bureau chief Cormac MacSweeney:

Joining the fight against ISIL is a responsibility Canada does not take lightly, but must not shirk, the Conservatives argued.

“There is never a good time to go to war but there comes a time in every country’s history where the necessity outweighs the risk and the urgency to defend our way of life, threatened as it is, must be defended,” Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Tuesday during a second day of debate.

“ISIL constitutes a clear and present danger to Canada and our allies.”

The government motion passed Tuesday expressly references direct threats against Canada, which presumably refers to a recently released ISIL video that Canada is mentioned, as well as an audio recording attributed to ISIL leader Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani that exhorted supporters to take up arms against “disbelievers.”

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European especially the spiteful and filthy French or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that joined a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be,” Al-Adnani said.

On the other side of the House, the Opposition NDP and the Liberals voted against the motion on the grounds that the Conservative government, maddeningly stingy with details about its plans, had failed to make a convincing case.

There are other important roles Canada can play that don’t involve dropping bombs, they argued.

The NDP had proposed an amendment to the motion that would have overhauled the motion entirely, focusing instead on supplying arms to local fighters and increasing humanitarian support. The amendment, however, was defeated 157-134.

During Tuesday’s debate, New Democrat MPs expressed skepticism that Canada’s contribution would end at six months of airstrikes.

“As we have seen in conflict after conflict after conflict, that becomes a slippery slope and that quickly evolves into boots on the ground,” said NDP MP Peggy Nash.

“There are always reasons: ‘We have to finish the job, we’re not effective enough, there is more we could be doing.”’

The government needs to release more details about what else is going to happen beyond airstrikes, she added.

“We need to know what is the plan, what is the duration, is it going to help or hurt, are we dealing effectively with the humanitarian need. I think we have very many questions that have not adequately been addressed.”

The Conservatives announced an increase in humanitarian aid to victims of the conflict on Monday, promising up to $10 million for victims of sexual violence.

The government says that since the beginning of 2014, more than $28 million has been allocated to humanitarian needs in Iraq.

The opposition parties say they will continue to press for more, although Liberal MP Marc Garneau said earlier Tuesday that MPs would stand alongside the military regardless of the outcome of the vote.

“We are going to vote against what the government is proposing… (but) to be honest with you, were going to lose that vote,” Garneau acknowledged after question period.

“Once that decision is made, the government is going to put into effect the plan that it has. And of course we support our troops.”